A former Director of the Department of State Services, DSS, Mike Ejiofor, has said ‘the body language’ of former President Goodluck Jonathan was partly responsible for why the 2012 anti-subsidy removal protest didn’t turn violent.
Ejiofor said this when he appeared as a guest on Arise TV Morning Show on Friday.
He said the protesters were orderly because the situation in the country then was not as bad as it is now.
Ejiofor said, “The 2012 protest didn’t turn violent, one, because of the body language of the sitting president then. He allowed everything to go and the situation was not as bad as what we have now. Now, it can be exploited because people are hungry, desperate and want to use anything to vent their anger.
“It is their legitimate right to protest as enshrined in the constitution. But I think they (organisers of protest) did us a lot of good by giving sufficient notice to the government of their intentions to go on protest and you can see the grounds of appeals from various stakeholders, interests groups appealing to them to shelve the plan.
“No matter how good their intentions are, I believe this will be hijacked eventually.” He said
He said some people kicking against the protests are doing so because of their personal interests. He further urged President Tinubu to extend his consultations to the common Nigerians at the grassroots while stressing the need for the President to address the nation in a broadcast.
“Looking at their demands, we will all agree that there is economic hardship in the country, there is hunger and anger in the land, but again people who are more hungry now will explore the opportunity to loot people’s shops and it will eventually turn violent and that’s why we will continue to appeal to organisers to shelve the plans and give government time to look at it.
“Nobody is saying they should not protest but if you protest and it turns violent, the government has the statutory mandate of protecting the state and the innocent citizens. The point remains that people have the right to protest as long as it doesn’t turn violent.
“The ordinary man in the street needs also to know what is happening because some people do not even have electricity to look at the nation to know what is going on. I think the president needs to directly speak to the people, maybe make a national broadcast, this will help in relaxing the situation,” he said
