PRESS STATEMENT BY THE NIGERIAN LAW SOCIETY ON THE PROPOSED NATIONWIDE HUNGER PROTEST.
Nigeria is indeed at a crossroads, and is now facing a full-blown cost of living crisis.
The Nigerian Law Society, like everyone else, is apprised of the impending nationwide protest; and while we do not want to delve into the politics of the protest, we wish to remind Federal and State authorities that in any democracy, the right to engage in peaceful protests is anchored on the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression.
Therefore, persons engaging in peaceful protests must be allowed to freely exercise their fundamental rights and must be given adequate protection.
The way and manner in which our Federal and State authorities respond to protests could determine whether an otherwise peaceful protest morphs into something else.
We therefore urge the relevant authorities to exhibit the highest level of professionalism, to show restraint and to shun any acts capable of undue escalation.
Protests by their very nature are byproducts of dissatisfaction, disaffection and frustration quite admittedly, however, while freedom of expression must be respected by government, protesters on their own part must not allow themselves to be infiltrated and/or hijacked by bad actors, such that it becomes difficult to differentiate between genuine protesters and troublemakers.
While citizens reserve the right to protest, other citizens also reserve the right of abstention; and in all, it is the responsibility of government to ensure that all divergent rights are respected and protected.
Democracy is not self-executing or self-sustaining, rather government must continue to discharge its sacred duty of promoting the welfare and security of the populace, while the citizenry must continue to perform their civic duties of safeguarding public utilities and reporting bad actors to the authorities.
Government must also ensure that lines of communication between the government and the governed are always up and running, so that protests, being one of the ways of ventilating legitimate frustrations in a democracy, do not degenerate into prolonged civil unrest.
May God bless and keep Nigeria.
