Mike Ejiofor, a former Director of the Department of State Services (DSS), has attributed the peaceful nature of the 2012 anti-subsidy removal protests to the approach and “body language” of then-President Goodluck Jonathan.
Ejiofor made these remarks during an appearance on an Arise TV Show on Friday, July 26.
Ejiofor noted that the protesters were orderly because the conditions in the country at that time were not as severe as they are currently. He suggested that some of those opposing current protests are motivated by personal interests.
He urged President Bola Tinubu to extend his consultations to ordinary Nigerians at the grassroots level and emphasized the importance of the President addressing the nation directly through a broadcast.
He 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, interest groups appealing to them to shelve the plan.
“No matter how good their intentions are, I believe this will be hijacked eventually. 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 the 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.”
