Former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Uche Secondus has added his voice to the burgeoning calls for the planned #EndBadGovernance in Nigeria peaceful protest, scheduled to begin on August 1-10, to go on as planned, reminding the president that he is a beneficiary of protests.
He recalled that President Tinubu, while in opposition, was notably the arrowhead leading protests against the government and wondered why he should be selfish this time.
Prince Secondus harped on the need for civic action to save our dear country from collapse in the face of an unprecedented economic crisis and insecurity occasioned by perennial bad governance by successive governments at all levels in Nigeria.
The former PDP leader argued iIn a statement issued today (Tuesday, July 30) in Abuja, the FCT, and signed by his media adviser, Mr. Ike Ebonyi, Secondus said that the state of anomie in which citizens find themselves today in Nigeria incrementally worsened because they failed in their duty to hold governments at all levels accountable.
The immediate past PDP National Chair lamented that this has been the case because political leaders often use partisan, ethnic and religious sentiments to either discourage protests when they are in government or encourage them when they are in the opposition.
According to Secondus, the planned #EndBadGovernance Protest “is a non-partisan pan-Nigerian and altruistic engagement of the citizens aimed at addressing the malaise in our country” and should, therefore, not be discouraged.
“Protests remain the most potent democratic platform through which the consciousness of nations can be aroused and indeed the consciousness of the leadership elite can be nudged and compelled to act right in the interest of citizens,” he asserted.
Secondus contended that the injunction in the Holy Bible which says “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” applies to the situation as Nigerians, warning that this not the time to sweep issues under the carpet but time to speak truth to power and awaken the people’s collective conscience “so that we can work together to build a better society.”
Accordingly, he called on all protesters to be organized and peaceful and shun all acts of violence, adding that governments at all levels and security agencies should, on their part, provide the necessary security environment to ensure that peace and order as sanctioned by international law and the Nigerian Constitution, prevail in the course of the protests.
