We Knew Buhari Would ‘Ruthlessly’ Deal With #EndSARS Protesters – Southern, Middle Belt Leaders

The Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF) has said it was not surprised at the federal government’s alleged relentless efforts to suppress the #EndSARS movement by clamping down on persons linked to the social movement.

The SMBLF said it had rightly projected that President Muhammadu Buhari would “ruthlessly” deal with the protesters in a bid to prevent them from challenging the government for their rights.

The forum also described the recent tour of some South East and South West states by a presidential delegation led by President Buhari’s Chief of Staff, Ibrahim Gambari, as an attempt to “manipulate support for the ruthless killings” of unarmed EndSARS protesters at the Lekki tollgate on October 20, 2020.

They suggested that the president should have sent such delegation to the South East and South West states at the peak of the protests to intervene in the matter.

The forum spoke in a statement titled “You can’t kill EndSARS with terror’ and signed by Senator Bassey Henshaw (South-south); Yinka Odumakin (South-west); Chief Guy Ikokwu (South-east) and Dr Isuwa Dogo (Middle Belt).

It reads, “We did not miss the projection when we interpreted President Muhammadu Buhari’s regrets of his accepting the #ENDSARS demands quickly as being seen as a sign of weakness in his last broadcast as a declaration that he would bare his fangs and ruthlessly deal with the protesters after the unwarranted and wicked killings of some of them at Lekki Tollgate and other places.

“Let us state clearly first that we are not in any way impressed by the belated and after-thought measure of sending some Kaduna delegates like the Chief of Staff and the IG round the non-Arewa sections of the country with a script to manipulate support for the ruthless killings of our young people and the barbaric desire to clamp down on social media as we have seen in the communiqués of the safaris to the South-east and South-west.

“We see the denial by Oyo Governor, Mr. Seyi Makinde, that the South-west did not canvass the clampdown on social media as a signal that the foot soldiers of the regime are deceiving themselves to colour the good points our people made at those sessions with the stinking propaganda of deluded colonial lords in Abuja.

“There have been reports of preventing leaders and supporters of the protest from travelling and alleged seizures of their travelling documents and freezing of their bank accounts without court process at a time the Attorney-General of the Federation is asking UAE authorities to give him the records of trials of six Nigerian Boko Haram funders convicted in that country by the highest court so he can certify whether justice was done or not.”

The forum condemned the alleged freezing of the protesters’ bank accounts by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

It also said that the recent alleged tagging of the EndSARS protesters as “terrorists” by the CBN Governor was ridiculous, urging him to check for the dictionary definition of terrorism.

The forum said if the country was being properly governed, the government should be talking of how to properly heal the country.