Igbo forum begs youths to shun hunger protest in Nigeria

By Cyprian Ebele, Onitsha

A pan Igbo socio-cultural organization, Imeobi Igbo Forum, Monday, begged Nigerian youths to shun the scheduled nationwide “Endbad governance in Nigeria”, protest, stating that it has become belated since they did not carry out the protest when the last Presidential election result was rigged in favour of President Bola Tinubu.

Making the plea, the forum national chairman, Mike Ikegulu, admitted that the right to protest is a constitutional right of the citizens as enshrined in Section 40 of the Nigeria 1999 Constitution.

He lamented that, “The youths lost the right on the day they failed to protest the selection called election on the 25th February 2023. They also watched the PEPT give judgement based on technicality rather than the substance of the matter. One would have expected the youths to have protested against lack of reforms at INEC and lack of political will to Restructure the federation held together by force.

“What about the obvious corruption, nepotism and resultant squandamania flourishing at all levels of government. The youths have been silent while the ethnic and religious bigots metamorphosed into monsters.

Yet no Protest. PBAT never promised much during the campaign and clearly nothing specific to embark on.

“What was clear was that he said that he would continue from where Buhari stopped. In all honesty, he’s doing just that. He’s never held a live press briefing to avoid interrogation and we present as if nothing moves us. Surrounded himself with mouth pieces and attack dogs and we’ve all been silent.

“The youths should have trouped out en masse in the build up to the election when there was doubt over PBAT name, origin, age, parentage, certificates and involvement in drugs. But the youths were caught in the web of ethnicity and religion. The foreign religions taught us that God makes the king. And the colonial security agencies are there to protect the rulers against the ruled.

“We should now bend our necks, since we’ve remained dumb and commatous in the build up to the present situation. Every country has the government it deserves”, he stated.