That the EndSARS protests have resumed on Monday in some areas of the Southwest did not come as a surprise. After all it assumed a political dimension since the very day that the federal government announced the disbanding of the special police unit.
The organisers immediately switched their demands to include among other things, the resignation of the President. It became apparent that, that was the hidden agenda, and, that the EndSARS protest was just a smoke screen.
I expressed my opinion on the issue a few weeks ago on this page, but yesterday’s resumed protests that is confined to the Southwest alone, only vindicated my informed opinion that it was all about 2023.
Some people in the zone do not want a leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who stands a good chance of winning the big office in the next election, to become President.
They see President Muhammadu Buhari as an obstacle and therefore, want to put pressure on him to leave office before his time. Of course anyone who succeeds the President will also come under heavy pressure from them to, as an incumbent with massive authourity and influence, muscle Tinubu out of scheme of things and have their way. It is that simple and logical.
I refuse to believe that the resumed EndSARS protests in the Southwest is as a result of sympathy for us in the Northeast – victims of Boko Haram or those in the Northwest and North-Central who are currently bedevilled by the menace of banditry and kidnappings.
Certaily not with a bill of over a trillion Naira that Lagos alone presented to the federal government seeking “compensation of damages” inflicted by hoodlums during the October staged riot.
For the past eleven years, Boko Haram had inflicted damages, a dozen times greater than that of the three days EndSARS burnings and lootings nationwide. Over 11,000 people were killed, millions displaced, hundreds of women and young girls were abducted and turned to concubines by Boko Haram and the Lagos state government or its represenratatives have never sponsored a trillion Naira legislative Bill to compensate the victims.
Anyone following political happenings in the Southwest knows that there is a political infighting going on within the APC. May be it is time for us card-carrying members to shift focus from that zone to the South-South to pick our next presidential candidate since we presented the ticket to them (Southwest) on a platter of gold, but it is apparent that they don’t want it.
Hello South-South!
Iyawa is Nigeria’s former Ambassador to Mexico
