…plans to attack Sanwoolu, Tinubu’s famililes
As organisers of the proposed “10 days of rage” protests push ahead their plans to embark on a nationwide protest between August 1 to August 10, a lot of the protest leaders and organisers are also positioning the protests to be a business avenue to milk the same hungry Nigerians the protests seek to highlight their sufferings.
One of the protest organisers, Adamma Benita Ukpabi who heads one organisation known as Active Citizens Group announced on X that it has written the Lagos Police Commissioner to inform the police of its intention to protest between August 1 to August 10 across Lagos Mainland and Lagos Island.
According to the letter sighted by Podium Reporters, Adamma Benita said her group is planning to protest at the Murtala Mohammed Airport, Ikeja Lagos as well as around the popular Lekki-Epe expressway. However, shortly after submission of the letter to the police authorities, Adamma Benita Ukpabi posted on her X handle @amannie6 that they have begun sale of their special protest t-shirts.
The t-shirts which according to Benita are imported from India are made up of a fabric of “100% pure cotton” and costs N6000. In essence, Adamma Benita Ukpabi and her group are asking hungry Nigerians to pay N6,000 to purchase t-shirts for protests.
Beyond the commercialisation of the protests, Podium Reporters also discovered that the head of the Active Citizens Group, Adamma Benita Ukpabi is also planning to attack the families of Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwoolu and President Bola Tinubu during the scheduled protests.
In a previous post on July 20, Adamma Benita Ukpabi was seen requesting for addresses of private properties belonging Tinubu, Sanwoolu and their family members in Lagos and abroad as well as other unnamed persons. She said, “Pls can anyone help us share the address of Tinubu’s family house in Lagos, his son Seyi’s family house in any part of abroad or Lagos where his wife and children live, Sanwoolu’s family house in Lagos and also help get the address of others”.
The sale of t-shirts to Nigerians protesting against hunger as well as apparent plan to attack the families of identified targets casts doubts on the true intentions of the organisers of the protests. This fuels the speculation that the protests are ploy by opposition elements to destabilise the country through violent uprising and possibly engineer a regime change.
It also points to a pattern that suggests the center of attraction for the protesters is basically Lagos and Abuja, with Lagos being the state of the incumbent President of Nigeria, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Most of the different protest organisers are very much interested in protesting in Lagos and mobilizing heavily in Lagos.
There are also concerns that there may be plans by some destructive elements to cause mayhem in Lagos reminiscent of the destruction seen during the #Endsars protests in October 2020 following some rhetoric by supporters threatening to unleash violence if any protester is arrested or killed in the course of the protests.