Throughout history, protests have driven powerful social movements — from the Salt March in India to the protests against the annulment of the June 12 election in Nigeria. The Initiative for Good and Informed Citizenship welcomed the #EndBadGovernance protests as a way for Nigerians crushed by economic policy decisions to raise their voices and speak truth to power.
But the right to protest does not include a right to loot, commit arson or disrupt others who choose not to protest. Destroying public property is senseless: it impoverishes all of us through restoration spending. Government, for its part, must facilitate and protect peaceful protest, and any intervention by security forces must be necessary and proportionate.
Above all, the problems we face cannot be solved through protests alone. Since 1984, Nigeria has produced tens of thousands of leaders — presidents, governors, ministers, legislators, local government chairmen and advisers. We should ask who has been manufacturing these leaders but ourselves. Leadership is produced, under our constitution, by citizens. When citizenship is enriched, leadership is vibrant.
We called on every Nigerian to get out of their comfort zones, attend local council meetings, and monitor how federation allocations are spent — at federal, state and local government levels, without exception.