The Federal Government has announced that it had launched investigations into the violence that raged in the last week of the countrywide protest, to identify and bring to justice all those responsible.
The Minister of Information and National Orientation Mohammad Idris, who gave the assurance yesterday while briefing members of the diplomatic community at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abuja, however, said President Bola Tinubu did not come to office to cause hardship or make life difficult for Nigerians.
The government has however warned that it would not tolerate any form of foreign interference in the ongoing protests in the country. Idris, who had met the diplomatic community on the heels of the violent outcome of the protests in some parts of the country, emphasised that security forces were under clear instruction to exercise maximum restraint and adhere to international standards in managing civil protests.
Breaking down the decision that led to the investigation of the protests, the minister stressed that when faceless groups issued a protest notice, the government felt it was not the time for such rather focus should be on allowing its various initiatives and interventions to manifest fully. He added that the government realised that a protest of this nature, which lacked coherent demands, or an organizational structure could be hijacked by subversive elements. It, therefore, mobilized to engage fully and freely with traditional rulers, religious leaders, youth groups, and civil society organizations, among others, to appeal to them to shelve the planned protest and instead embrace dialogue.
The minister stressed that the security forces were instructed to exercise maximum restraint and adhere to international standards in managing civil protests, adding they put in the shift to ensure the safety of all law-abiding Nigerians, and to maintain order, in the last week and were also decisive in their response to criminality.
He upheld the democratic rights of Nigerians to freely express their grievances and demand accountability from their governments, noting that since the advent of the administration, it had maintained an open-door policy, where citizens were regularly briefed on the policy direction of the government. Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, while speaking, warned that the Nigerian government would not tolerate any form of foreign interference in the ongoing protest in the country.
The minister said the government would deal with any entity within the country found to have directly or indirectly supported the protest. But he has assured Nigerians and the world at large that President Tinubu understood the pains and frustration driving the protest and was doing everything to address them.
