LINUS CHIBUIKE
THE Progressive Governors’ Forum has linked the hijack of the #EndSARS protest to undercover leadership and the inability of promoters to take responsibility.
The Director-General of the PGF, Salihu Lukman, said with such a situation, the capacity of the organisers to control the protest and ensure that desired outcomes were achieved was weakened.
Lukman, who spoke in a statement on Sunday in Abuja, noted also that the implication of undercover or virtual leadership, especially by young people in an emerging democracy like Nigeria, was that the potentials for leadership recruitment would be blocked.
He however said the nation must help strengthen political leaders to overcome their inertia towards interest negotiations, aimed at producing the needed compromises around major challenges facing Nigeria’s democracy.
“The terrifying situation now is that our young people have joined the crowd of the angry population largely because of the perception that any demand they make become disagreeable to our political leaders and therefore classified as rebellion, which must be crushed,” the DG observed.
Pointing out the flaws in the protests, he said, “How can there be any political negotiation when the language is abusive? Combinations of inability to take responsibility and hostile political environment, which doesn’t support negotiations create the perilous situation whereby the last protest of young Nigerians against police brutality in the country was organised with undercover or virtual leadership.
“The disadvantage of protest with undercover or virtual leadership, especially by young people in an emerging democracy like Nigeria is that potentials for leadership recruitment are blocked.”
He added, “The second disadvantage is that the prospects for negotiations especially with the genuine leaders of the protest were remote.
“And thirdly, the capacity of the organisers to control the protest and ensure that desired outcomes are achieved is also weakened.
“All these contributed to making the protest vulnerable, which resulted in the sad hijack by criminal elements and the widespread destructions and looting that followed in all parts of the country.”
Lukman said for a nation as diverse as Nigeria, “without negotiating any of the demands of citizens, how successful can we claim to be?”
He said, “For instance, what will any leader or section of the country lose if provisions of the APC Committee on True Federalism are to be subjected to debates for constitutional and legal amendments in the National Assembly?
“Why is it easy to mobilise support for electoral contests but impossible to consider any mobilisation for contests on matters that affect the wellbeing of our democracy and our nation?
“As a party, APC is far ahead of its political peers in terms of being a liberal party with strong internal contestation.
“But such liberalism is yet to produce the corresponding requirement for interest representation and negotiation within the party, which is responsible for why our elected and appointed political leaders in the party estimate citizens’ demands as disagreement and subversive when it doesn’t correspond to their positions.
“It is also why fellow party leaders would appear intolerant to positions of other party leaders regarding both citizens’ demands and internal disagreements.”
“We need to appeal to our leaders at all levels, especially in APC, to liberate themselves and shed off any fear of citizens’ engagement, internal disagreements, political negotiations and the possible compromises that may emerge both within the party and in the country,” the DG added.
