Osun Residents Protest ‘Hardship,’ Ask Buhari To Resign

Residents and activists in Osogbo, the Osun State capital on Wednesday trooped out to protest what they called unbearable hardship in the country since President Muhammadu Buhari came to power in 2015.

The protesters under the aegis of the Joint Action Front said Buhari administration had kept increasing the suffering of the people despite the administration’s promise that its policies would bring development to the nation.

The protesters said the suffering had become worse since the recent increment in petrol pump price, electricity tariff and other increments which they decried as means of milking the poor to death.

JAF, populated by Human Rights Activists, however, demanded the immediate resignation of Buhari, stressing that the President had failed Nigerians woefully.

The protesters also called for the reversal of the increment in petrol price and electricity tariff with immediate effect.

The convener of JAF, Mr Alfred Adegoke, who is a lawyer called on Nigerians to resist the increments.

He said, “if the President cannot reverse the price of fuel from N160 to the N86.50, where it was from 2012 to May 10, 2016, then he (Buhari) should voluntarily resign his position as the president.”

“This struggle has just started. We must stop this wickedness. The president has said that petroleum is going to N300; are you prepared to pay that? If we accept that today, education will be more commercialised; electricity, you can’t pay for; house, you can’t buy and ,you can’t buy food. Government cannot provide water, houses or jobs. That is the mess we have been seeing. Irresponsible government all the time. We say no! This must end!

“We say no to all oppressive and exploitative government. This struggle has just started. Power for the people. Power for the workers. Power for the students.”

Also Speaking, Waheed Lawal, Chairman Coalition of Civil Society in the state, called on labour unions such as NLC, TUC among others to declare a general strike and mass protest.

Lawal, who educated the people of the state on the need to join the struggle, said they would continue to express their displeasure over the dual approval of new electricity tariff and increment in pump price of petrol through demonstration.

“We can’t do this in isolation. TUC, NLC, they have not said anything. And we know the meaning of that silence. Silence has a meaning. If they don’t want their people to stamp them to death on the street, they have to come out now and issue a statement,” he said.

Also Speaking, the Director of Program, Centre for Sustained Dialogue, Comrade Waheed Saka, said everything about the new tariff regime speaks about how insensitive and wicked the leaders of this country have become even in a democracy.

Saka asked, “How on earth will anybody happily approve a new tariff regime and increment in pump price of petrol at a time our people are still languishing in pains and pangs triggered by lockdown due to COVID 19 pandemic?

“How on earth will successive leaders of our nation kowtow to the World Bank/IMF directives without due diligence on the negative impact such directive will have on the citizen of this country?”