The Yoruba Initiative (TYI), a think tank of Yoruba professionals, intellectuals and entrepreneurs, has urged Nigerians, particularly the youths, to shun the Occupy Nigeria protest planned by a group and slated to take off on Tuesday.
The organisers of the planned protest, led by a well-known public affairs commentator and don, Prof. Pat Utomi, had called on Nigerians to come out en masse on the scheduled date to occupy public spaces and facilities in protest against last Wednesday’s dismissal of the petitions against the 25th February election of the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as President. The five-member Presidential Election Petition Court unanimously threw out three petitions filed by the Peoples Democratic Party, the Labour Party, the Allied Peoples Movement, and their presidential candidates.
Although the organisers of the planned protest said that its objective is to promote the entrenchment of democratic values and the defence of the public good, TYI countered that it is “nothing but a self-serving device to destroy the foundations of the nation’s democratic order”.
In a statement by its Director of Publicity, Mr. Tunde Ipinmisho, TYI said that, having willingly initiated the judicial process, the planned protest is a contradiction for the “petitioners and those who purport to fight for them to now resort to self-help, which portends nothing for the nation but instability, and a threat to law and order”.
The group expressed surprise that those led by “an intellectual of the status of Utomi, whose previous advocacy had been underpinned by an apparent commitment to the rule of law would now be advocating for a public protest that seeks to achieve nothing but a subversion of that same system”.
It recalled that Utomi had previously led a group that once occupied the national headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission in Abuja.
TYI also noted that, in 2020, similar groups had seized a protest against alleged violation of human rights by an arm of the Police to foist on the nation an “unprecedented campaign of violence that caused wholesale destruction of critical infrastructure particularly in Lagos and other parts of the South West”.
It said no group that purports to have the interest of the nation at heart would be seeking to engage in any activity at this critical time, which could bring about the destabilisation of public order in the country.
TYI advised the petitioners and their supporters to “tread the part of honour, follow through the judicial process they had initiated and commit themselves to accepting the outcome of that process at the Supreme Court”.
It warned that the leaders of the South West would never again permit the large scale brigandage unleashed on Lagos in the wake of the #ENDSARS protest and advised those who might be plotting a repeat of same to back down from their dangerous plan.
The group also appealed to the relevant security agencies to take note of the “apparent threat to the nation’s security and call those behind it to order”.
