The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has criticised the move by the Nigerian Police to stop a nationwide peaceful protest spearheaded by a pop musician, Tuface Idibia, billed to take place this weekend.
The protest rally which is being planned to take place simultaneously in some major cities across the country, including Lagos State, Abuja and Asaba, is seen as an avenue provided by the organisers to enable Nigerians voice out their worries over hardship in the land.
However, against the background of reports yesterday stating that police authorities in Lagos had warned that it might not allow the protest to hold, the APC said it would amount to a breach of the constitution to carry out such an order.
Speaking in a telephone interview with Thisday yesterday (Thursday), the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Mallam Bolaji Abdulahi, said there was nothing wrong in people holding peaceful protest under a democracy.
He said the party was not opposed to any form of expression of opposing view point by anyone so far it is done in a peaceful and non-violent manner and did not constitute disruption of public peace.
“For us, it is about the constitution of Nigeria. Tuface or any other citizen of the country has the right to stage a peaceful protest, that is the position of our constitution. We as a party will not be part of anything that will abridge or take away the right of citizens to protest, especially in a democracy.
The APC spokesman justified the party’s position by saying it would be wrong to stifle peaceful protest since APC benefitted from such citizen’s right to expression of dissent during its days as opposition party.
“We have as a party benefited greatly from citizen’s right to express their democratic rights and our being in government is not going to change that orientation to promote the liberties and right of citizen hold dissenting views,” he said.
On what the party would be advising the security forces and the organisers of the protest to do under the circumstances, the party spokesman said: “Well I don’t know exactly what the police are saying about banning the protest. I think what the police will probably be saying is that they are concerned about the issue of safety and threat to lives and property in the course of the protest.
“There are always fears that hoodlums might hijack a peaceful protest and use the opportunity to perpetrate violence on innocent citizens. I suspect this might be the consideration of the police. But this should not be good enough reason to deny citizens the full enjoyment of their constitutional rights however they wish to express them.”
Speaking on the motive of such protests and whether it would impact negatively on the image of the federal government controlled by his party, Abdullahi said: “We believe that protests are a form of feedback, although we may not agree with the grievances but at the same time, it may be an opportunity for us to communicate more about what we are doing that the citizens may have had insufficient information on. It may be an opportunity for us to give better clarification on what our government is doing.
“But fundamentally, it will be a form of feedback for us to do more in citizen’s engagement and enlightenment and to focus more on our commitment to the promises we made to our people. I do not see it as anything that is antithetical to our democracy.”
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