Cost of living: Protest spreads as Labour faults FG’s relief measures
Some youths staged a protest in Osun State on Friday against biting hardship occasioned by the rising cost of living similar to what happened in Kano and Niger states on Wednesday when residents of Kano, Minna, and Suleja took to the streets.
A group of youths on Friday staged a peaceful protest in Osogbo, Osun State, over the rising cost of living, with a call on the government to immediately intervene.
The protesters, who carried placards with inscriptions such as, ‘Change the unfavourable policies’, ‘Nigerians are suffering, we can’t cope again’, and ‘We are humans, stop mistreating the citizens’, among others, assembled along the MDS Road in the state capital early in the morning.
Despite the presence of many police personnel near the venue of the protest, the youth kept singing songs that expressed the frustration of many Nigerians by the hardship.
Addressing the protesters, the Chairman, Osun Civil Societies Coalition, Mr Waheed Lawal, said the protest would continue until the Federal Government finds solutions to the current economic hardship ravaging the country. He said, “The government must ameliorate the suffering of the people. They must do whatever they need to do to make sure that the people live in better conditions. Nigerians deserve the best. They promised us renewed hope, but what they are giving us now is renewed hardship. We reject renewed hardship in our lives because Nigerians deserve the best.
“What Nigerians want is a peaceful atmosphere. We don’t want insecurity in our land again. We can’t travel from Osogbo to Ibadan without panicking. You will be thinking that they will kidnap you. The abduction of monarchs is the order of the day in our country now. We urge the government to provide security for the life and property of the citizens. It is their responsibility, it is a constitutional responsibility.
“Every government that fails to provide security for the lives of the citizens is no longer a government. What we are saying is simple; we are ready to face the government in this hardship and we are marathon runners. We have started this struggle today and if the government fails to listen to us, we will continue to mobilise our people against this hardship because enough is enough.”
The Federal Government hinted that the 42,000 metric tons of assorted grains from the Ministry of Agriculture and the 60,000 metric tons of rice it was planning to buy from the Rice Millers Association of Nigeria to cushion the rising cost of living would be made available from February 19.
This was disclosed by the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Idris Mohammed, in an interview with Saturday PUNCH on Friday.
He explained that the 42,000 metric tons of grains from the strategic reserves were meant to crash the prices of food items in the market, adding that the government had other backup plans to ensure that the objective was met.
He also noted that making the grains available to Nigerians required strategic planning to ensure that they reached the targeted masses hence the reason to start the distribution in one to two weeks.
This was as the Organised Labour insisted on embarking on industrial action to register its displeasure over the current economic hardship in the country despite some measures announced by the Federal Government to bring succour to the citizens.
Labour had threatened to go on strike if the Federal Government did not meet its demands of paying a wage award to civil servants, adding that it was long overdue. Punch
