The Conference of Nigeria Political Parties, CNPP, has said opposition political parties in Nigeria failed to discharge their mandate in the #EndBadGovernance protests.
CNPP, an umbrella body of Nigerian political parties and political associations, said it was not enough for the opposition parties to issue statements supporting the protests.
Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the CNPP, Comrade James Ezema, who spoke to NewsNGR, said the opposition parties should have led the protests.
He noted that some of the problems recorded in the course of the protests, such as looting and vandalization of property, and other violent acts which led to loss of lives, could have been averted if the protest had a clear leadership.
Further faulting the attitude of the opposition parties, Ezema pointed out that leaders of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, led a similar protest during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Ezema said, “The protest has no known leaders except for some individuals who are trying to provide leadership on their own, since the opposition political parties have failed to provide the needed leadership in a situation like this.
“When the APC was in the opposition, they led the protest during the Jonathan administration. They were not staying at home and issuing statements and telling people that what they are pursuing is a legitimate right, as the opposition did in this case. The then leaders of APC, like former President Muhammadu Buhari and the current President, Bola Tinubu, were all in the forefront leading the agitation for better governance under the PDP administration.”
The CNPP spokesman observed that even as the opposition parties stayed away, the APC government has continued to claim that the protest is politically motivated.
He therefore noted that the opposition parties have no reason to fail to take up what he described as their ‘legitimate duty’.
Ezema added, “So why should the opposition political parties stay away? Meanwhile the government has continued to blackmail them, saying that the protest is politically motivated. Shying away has not even helped the opposition political parties because the government will always lay the blame at their doorstep.
“So why not come out and exercise their legitimate duty as opposition leaders by leading the protest and then we will not see all these carnage that came up because we have a group of individuals who are protesting without leadership, without control and some people do what they like. Those who are criminals are stealing, those who are genuinely protesting are protesting while some other persons are there telling them that the protest should not continue and everybody is just doing their thing.
“So the opposition parties should either keep quiet, or come out and start leading the protest.”
He also criticized Tinubu’s address, saying the President was silent on the issues that sparked the protest.
Ezema, in the same vein, accused the government of criminalizing the protest in a bid to clampdown on the protesters.
“The President did not speak to issues that sparked the protest in the first place. People are on the street because the cost of living is high. But what the government is doing is criminalizing the protest so that at the end of the day, they will have more reason to unleash terror on the ordinary citizens.
“That is the strategy they are using at the moment. They want to criminalize the genuine protests and aspirations of the ordinary citizens so that at the end of the day they will unleash security agencies against them.
“In the first place this is the first time we are seeing government obtaining a court order to restrict people from protesting. Civil disobedience is a right in a democracy so how can you now ask a court to issue an order to restrain people from exercising their democratic right?”