President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Nigeria’s armed forces on Thursday warned against Kenya-style violence in protests planned for next week over soaring living costs, with the military saying it would head off “anarchy”.
Kenya was rocked by deadly protests that forced the government to repeal new taxes. Nigeria’s economic reforms have seen a 40 percent spike in food inflation but there has been no unrest.
Social media calls have been made for demonstrations from August 1.
It is unclear who is behind the calls or whether people will take part at a time when many Nigerians are wary of losing work and cautious over past crackdowns.
President Tinubu touched on the concerns in a statement late Thursday, saying: “We are not afraid of protests. Our concern is the ordinary people, and the damages that will be done.”
In a separate statement, he said “we do not want to turn Nigeria into Sudan,” referencing the 15-month-old civil war in the northeast African country.
“We are talking about hunger, not burials. We have to be careful.”
Prices have risen since Tinubu ended a costly fuel subsidy and liberalised the naira currency in reforms needed to revive the economy of Africa’s most populous nation.
Officials, security forces and governors have urged youth to stay away from any protests. Some have even accused the organisers of treason and seeking to destabilise the country.
“While citizens have the right to peaceful protest, they do not have the right to mobilise for anarchy and unleash terror,” defence spokesman Major General Edward Buba told reporters.
“It is easy to see that the contemporary context of the planned protest is to shadow the happenings in Kenya, which I must say is violent,” he added.
Army ‘will not stand by’
The armed forces had detected some “elements bent on hijacking” the planned protests, he said.
“The level of violence being envisaged can only be described as a state of anarchy. The armed forces on its part will not stand by and allow anarchy to befall our nation.”
The Department of State Services or DSS, which handles domestic threats, said “sinister” elements wanted to abuse the protests and had political motives.
“The plotters desire to use the intended violent outcome to smear the federal and sub-national governments; make them unpopular and pit them against the masses,” it said in a rare statement.
Tinubu, who has repeatedly called for patience with his reforms, has also suggested some groups were mobilising protests to unleash violence and replicate the Kenyan protests.
On Thursday he met with traditional rulers to seek their help countering any demonstrations.
“We traditional rulers are not engaged in people, especially the youth, coming out to start looting, to start breaking down law and order,” the Ooni of Ife Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi said after the meeting.
The president agreed last week to more than double the monthly minimum wage for federal workers to 70,000 naira ($43). He has also started delivering truckloads of rice to each state in an attempt to ease cost-of-living pressures.
The last major protest movement in Nigeria, in October 2020, began over abuses by the SARS anti-robbery police squad, but grew into the largest anti-government demonstrations in Nigeria’s modern history.
The police unit was disbanded but the protests ended in bloodshed.
Witnesses and rights organisations accused security forces of opening fire on peaceful protesters at the Lekki toll gate in Lagos on October 20, 2020.
Amnesty International said the army killed at least 10 people at the toll gate, but security forces rejected responsibility, saying troops used blank rounds to disperse people breaking a curfew.
