ABUJA: President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Nigeria's armed forces on Thursday warned of Kenya-style violence in protests planned for next week over the soaring cost of living, with the military saying it would avert “anarchy”.
Deadly protests have rocked Kenya, forcing the government to cancel new taxes. Nigeria's economic reforms saw a 40 percent increase in food inflation, but no riots.
Demonstrations have been announced on social networks since August 1.
It is unclear who is worth the calls or whether people will participate at a time when many Nigerians fear losing their jobs and are wary of past crackdowns.
President Tinubu addressed these concerns in a statement on Thursday, saying: “We are not afraid of protests. Our concern is ordinary people and the damage that will be caused.”
In a separate statement, he said “we do not want to turn Nigeria into Sudan”, pointing to the North 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 costly fuel subsidies and liberalized the naira currency in reforms needed to revive the economy of Africa's most populous nation.
Officials, security forces and governors urged young people to avoid any protests. Some even accused the organizers of treason and trying to destabilize the country.
“While citizens have the right to protest peacefully, they do not have the right to mobilize for anarchy and unleash terror,” defense spokesman Major General Edward Buba told reporters.
“It is easy to see that the current context of the planned protest is to overshadow what is happening in Kenya, which I must say is violent,” he added.
The armed forces had uncovered some “hijack-oriented elements” of the planned protests, he said.
“The level of violence anticipated can only be described as a state of anarchy. The armed forces will not stand by and allow anarchy to descend upon our nation.”
The Department of State Services, or DSS, which deals with domestic threats, said “sinister” elements wanted to exploit the protests and were politically motivated.
“The plotters wish to use the intended violent outcome to smear the federal and sub-national governments; to make them unpopular and pit them against the masses,” the rare statement said.
Tinubu, who has repeatedly called for patience with his reforms, also hinted that some groups were mobilizing the protests to unleash violence and replicate the Kenyan protests.
He met with traditional rulers on Thursday to ask for their help in fighting any demonstrations.
“We traditional rulers are not involved with the people, especially the youth, who are coming to start looting, to start disrupting law and order,” Ooni of Ife Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi said after the meeting.
The president last week agreed to more than double the monthly minimum wage for federal workers to 70,000 naira ($43). He also started delivering truckloads of rice to every state in an effort to ease pressure on the cost of living.
The last major protest movement in Nigeria in October 2020 began over abuses by the anti-robbery police, SARS, but escalated into the largest anti-government demonstrations in Nigeria's modern history.
The police force 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 soldiers had used live ammunition to disperse people violating the curfew.
