APC alleged that opposition parties had resorted to instigating unsuspecting young people to protest, following the protests that rocked Minna and Kano on Monday over the hardship in the country.
A statement issued on Tuesday by National Publicity Secretary of APC, Felix Morka, claimed that the protests in Minna and Kano on Monday were the manifestation of some devious and unpatriotic plot.
Morka stated, “It was part of desperation to portray the ruling party as underperforming. In its arrant desperation to portray the APC-led administration as under-performing, opposition parties have resorted to instigating unsuspecting young people to protests in the streets of some major cities.
“The protests in Minna and Kano on Monday were the manifestation of this devious and unpatriotic plot. That the protests happened simultaneously in both cities is not coincidental. It bears a bold stamp of an orchestrated and coordinated effort to instigate unrest and undermine the government.
“This mercenary opposition tactic is a clear and present threat to public peace and national security.
“While the party recognised the right of citizens to engage in peaceful protest, it urged the people to be vigilant and not lend themselves to the treacherous attempt by the opposition to promote social strife by its incendiary rhetoric and manipulative plots.”
Morka stressed that the President Bola Tinubu administration was solidly committed to doing everything in its power to mitigate the transient pains of critically important reforms that were crucial to economic recovery and sustainable prosperity for all Nigerians.
PDP Slams Tinubu, APC for Attempting to Politicise Hardship, Insists Nigerians Have Right to Protest
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) condemned attempts by the presidency and APC to politicise the protests by Nigerians over economic hardship and worsening insecurity in the country.
National Publicity Secretary of PDP Debo Ologunagba said, “The action of the APC in threatening Nigerians for exercising their democratic and constitutional right to protest in the face of misrule, agonising poverty, hunger, killings and other harrowing experiences under the Tinubu administration shows that the APC is insensitive and relishes the life-discounting situation in the country.
“This approach by the APC, instead of listening to the people, is not only offensive, but akin to pushing Nigerians to the wall and daring them to do their worse.”
The PDP spokesman said it was an assault on the sensibility of the people that rather than provide answers to how the Tinubu-led APC government, in a space of nine months, turned the country’s economy upside down, leading to terrifying food scarcity and catastrophic high cost of living, APC was seeking to label and clamp down on the suffering masses.
According to Ologunagba, “The APC is insensitive to the fact that because of its policies more than 104 million citizens have sunk deeper into poverty; Nigerians can no longer afford their daily meals, with families now going to bed on empty stomach, as poverty rate soars to over 46 per cent.
“Any government that has an idea of macro-economic policy management ought to have recognised that the suffocating policies of abrupt increase in the pump price of petroleum products, high cost of electricity, and arbitrary floating of the naira, as executed by the Tinubu administration without due considerations, would have excruciating consequences to the economy, as being witnessed today.”
PDP alleged, “The thoughtless policies by President Tinubu and the APC are responsible for the crippling of the productive sector with 28 per cent inflation rate, crashing of the naira from N167 to over N1, 500 to a dollar, closure of millions of businesses, and mass exodus of international companies from Nigeria, resulting to a distressing 41 per cent unemployment rate and unbearable pressure on millions of families across the country.
“Today, Nigerians are resorting to suicide while thousands of our promising youths are leaving the country in droves.
“Is it not provocative that in the last eight years and nine months, instead of deploying the nation’s resources for the improvement of critical infrastructure and the productive sectors, Nigerians have witnessed massive looting of over N20 trillion by APC leaders and its officials in government through direct pillaging of government vaults, budget padding, contract inflation, oil subsidy scam, palliative racketeering and phony programmes, which have no benefit and consequence to the lives of the citizens?
“Since President Tinubu took office on May 29, 2023, no fewer than 5,000 Nigerians have been killed by terrorists, apparently, emboldened by the laidback attitude and body language of Mr. President, who has failed to show seriousness on issues of security or empathy to victims either by words or action.”