Aduragbemi Omiyale
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
Nigerians have been urged not to participate in the planned protest scheduled for June 12, 2021, a day set aside in the country to celebrate Democracy Day.
June 12 became an important day in the history of the nation after a former Military President, Mr Ibrahim Babaginda, annulled an election held on June 12, 1993, which was believed to have been won by late Moshood Abiola.
Before now, Democracy Day was celebrated every May 29, a day the military officially handed over power to a civilian government in 1999, but in 2018, President Muhammadu Buhari officially announced June 12 as the new Democracy Day and it was declared a public holiday instead of the May 29.
Due to the rising spate of insecurity in the country, some Nigerians have planned to use the June 12 holiday to stage a protest across the nation to show their displeasure.
But a group known as the Buhari for Better Tomorrow Movement has advised Nigerians to ignore the proposed Democracy Day protest, describing the promoters of the protest as “unpatriotic elements in the country.”
In a statement issued to newsmen in Abuja by the group’s national publicity secretary, Mr Godwin Ngene, the organisers of the protest were called “foreign agents who collected money from some foreign bodies and corporations to scuttle Nigeria’s fledgling democracy.
According to Mr Ngene, the demonstration is aimed to undermine the corporate existence of the country and disrupt the socio-economic activities of Nigerians in order to further inflict pains and hardships on the citizenry.
The organisation said past experiences have shown that protests normally leave bitter tastes in the mouth of people affected, especially the business owners and employers of labour.
It called on youths across the federation to avoid any form of protest on June 12 and give the government time to address their concerns because governance is a process and never an act.
The group, however, promised to mobilise young people across the nation to stage a peaceful solidarity march in support of democracy and the government of Mr Buhari tomorrow, saying they want to expose younger generations to the tenets of democracy and how they can help the country to strengthen its democratic institutions.
