By Jimmy Fatunbi
Labour Party and New Nigerian People’s Party have criticised President Bola Tinubu for failing to condemn the arrest and alleged killings of protesters.
In an exclusive interview, the National Secretary of the New Nigeria People’s Party, Dipo Olaoyoku, said the President failed to take a fatherly role in addressing the organisers’ demands long before the protest began.
He said, “Let me use an analogy to describe what is going on. As a father, we have children. And the Bible tells us that children should respect their parents. The same Bible goes further to say fathers should not provoke their children. Unfortunately, many people don’t read the Bible. You have children saying ‘Father, we are hungry.’ I think a good father should find a means of sitting them down. That is even from home, not to talk of a country with diverse cultures and diverse people.
“All these things are avoidable. I remember sometime in June before travelling out of the country, I saw something like a protest. By the time I came back, I was still seeing the same message all over. So, it is an action that the people gave him adequate notice about. As a father, I would have done everything humanly possible to ensure the protest didn’t happen. But what did the father do instead? He was busy inviting traditional rulers and governors instead of talking directly to his children. It is still not too late. Unfortunately, when you look at the killing, it is most likely to be from the security agencies.”
Similarly, the National Publicity Secretary of the Labour Party, Obiora Ifoh, said the continued silence of the President over the mayhem that occurred was baffling.
He wondered why the President would watch while his people were being “harassed, maimed, and killed for demanding their constitutional rights.”
