ABUJA: President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Nigeria's armed forces on Thursday warned against Kenya-style violence in protests planned for next week over rising living costs, with the military saying it would avoid “anarchy”.
Kenya has been rocked by deadly protests that have forced the government to repeal new taxes. Economic reforms in Nigeria have seen a 40% increase in food inflation, but there has been no unrest.
Calls were made on social media for demonstrations on 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 their jobs and wary of past crackdowns.
President Tinubu touched on the concerns in a statement on Thursday evening, saying: “We are not afraid of protests. Our concern is ordinary people and the damage that will be done.”
In a separate statement, he said “we do not want to turn Nigeria into Sudan”, referring to the northeast African country's 15-month civil war.
“We are talking about hunger, not funerals. We have to be careful.”
Prices have risen since Tinubu ended a costly fuel subsidy and liberalized the naira currency in reforms needed to revive the economy of Africa's most populous nation.
Officials, security forces and governors urged the youth to stay away from any protests. Some even accused the organizers of treason and trying to destabilize the country.
“While citizens have the right to peaceful protests, they do not have the right to mobilize for anarchy and unleash terror,” said defense spokesman Major General Edward Buba.
“It is easy to see that the contemporary context of the planned protest is to overshadow the happenings in Kenya, which I must say is violent,” he added.
The armed forces have detected some “elements bent on hijacking” the planned protests, he said.
“The level of violence envisaged can only be described as a state of anarchy. The armed forces, for their part, will not stand by and allow anarchy to strike our nation.”
The Department of State Services, or DSS, which deals with domestic threats, said “sinister” elements wanted to abuse the protests and were politically motivated.
“The plotters want to use the intended violent outcome to denigrate 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, also suggested that some groups were mobilizing protests to spark violence and replicate the protests in Kenya.
On Thursday, he met with traditional rulers to ask for their help in countering any demonstration.
“We traditional rulers are not involved with people, especially the youth, who come to start looting, start breaking law and order,” Ooni of Ife Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi said after the meeting.
The president agreed last week to double the monthly minimum wage for federal workers to 70,000 naira ($43). It also started delivering truckloads of rice to every state in an attempt to ease cost-of-living pressures.
Nigeria's last major protest movement, in October 2020, began over abuses by the anti-robbery police team SARS, but became the largest anti-government demonstrations in Nigeria's modern history.
The police unit was disbanded, but the protests ended in bloodshed.
Witnesses and rights organizations have 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 denied responsibility, saying troops used live rounds to disperse people trespassing at the station.
