The Southern Nigeria Muslim Organization (SONMO), co-convened by Alh. Dr. Haroun O. Ajah, FCRSA and Imam Salahud-Deen Busair, has called on the participants in the ongoing nation wide protest to stop and allow peaceful dialogue with the government in a bid to address all the legitimate demands put forward.
According to the statement released on Saturday, “This call is imperative in the wake of violence, deaths, looting, and destructions witnessed across the country as the protests entered day three. The organization recognizes the fact that there is hunger in the land occasioned by the removal of fuel subsidy and floating of our currency by the federal government.
“We also agreed that citizens have fundamental right to protest in order to make their grievances known to the government, but the protest has to be peaceful with the laid down laws, and in this case the hoodlums have infiltrated the protests hence, the need to stop in order to safe lives and our national assets from destructions”
Tinubu’s administration aims to correct historical missteps, not to cause hardship.
Full statement below:
HUNGER PROTEST: SOUTHERN NIGERIA MUSLIM ORGANIZATION CALLS FOR SUSPENSION AND PEACEFUL DIALOGUE.
The Southern Nigeria Muslim Organization (SONMO), has called on the participants in the ongoing nation wide protest to stop and allow peaceful dialogue with the government in a bid to address all the legitimate demands put forward.
This call is imperative in the wake of violence, deaths, looting, and destructions witnessed across the country as the protests entered day three. The organization recognizes the fact that there is hunger in the land occasioned by the removal of fuel subsidy and floating of our currency by the federal governmenmt under the leadership of His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR. We also agreed that citizens have fundamental right to protest in order to make their grievances known to the government, but the protest has to be peaceful with the laid down laws, and in this case the hoodlums have infiltrated the protests hence, the need to stop in order to safe lives and our national assets from destructions.
We have taken note of the efforts of the federal government in addressing some of the challenges facing the nation in the areas of ensuring autonomy for the local governments, provision of students’ loan, critical infrastructure, palliatives, cash transfer, consumers’ credit, and so on. It is imperative to encourage the government to ensure proper implementations of these initiatives, and we equally called on the sub- national governments (state and local governments) to key into the programmes of the federal government and ensure that they do their own part in addressing the socio-economic issues affecting the citizenry.
Conclusively, as patriots and nationalists, we urge all the protesters to shield their swords and stop the protests immediately in order to allow the government to look into the demands put forward for proper attention.
_VAM News August 4, 2024_
