Igbo Think-tank group, AlaIgbo Development Foundation (ADF) has warned that President Bola Tinubu is hellbent on “plunging Nigeria to another ugly era of extreme authoritarianism and totalitarianism.”
In a statement issued in Enugu on Wednesday and jointly signed by Prof. Ukachukwu Awuzie and Mr. Abia Onyike, the group’s National President and National Secretary respectively condemned the “intimidation and harassment of civil society leaders.”
Prof. Ukachukwu Awuzie
The ADF states that it “condemn[s] in totality the on-going incessant and serial harassment, arrest and intimidation mounted against the President of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Mr. Joe Ajaero by the security agencies of the Federal government of Nigeria.”
The group accused President Bola Tinubu of selling out to international capitalist cartels to the detriment of the economic wellbeing of Nigerians.
According to the ADF, “It is unfortunate that President Tinubu has decided to toe this ignoble line whereby he uses the security agencies to deploy force and intimidation to implement his anti-people economic policies, after having sold out to international finance capital and the imperialist metropolis of the North-Atlantic Western powers.”
The group, therefore, called on President Tinubu “to retrace his steps by reviewing his draconian economic policies before it gets too late.”
The full statement reads:
ADF CONDEMNS INCESSANT HARASSMENT AND ARRESTS OF JOE AJAERO.
The AlaIgbo DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION(ADF) wishes to condemn in totality the on-going incessant and serial harassment, arrest and intimidation mounted against the President of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Mr. Joe Ajaero by the security agencies of the Federal government of Nigeria.
After a critical review of Ajaero’s recent encounters with the security agencies, the ADF has come to the inescapable conclusion that the government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is hell-bent on plunging Nigeria backwards into the abyss of draconian rule, characterized by illegal arrests and punitive detention of innocent citizens.
The ADF views this ill-advised strategy of intimidation and harassment of civil society leaders as an admission by the Tinubu administration that it has failed woefully to defend the nation’s democracy because of the catastrophic failure it has recorded in its economic policies, which have yielded nothing but mass poverty and unbelievable level of hunger amongst the citizenry.
In fact, we dare to aver that the Tinubu administration now constitutes a major affront on Nigeria’s hard-won democracy. It is unfortunate that President Tinubu has decided to toe this ignoble line whereby he uses the security agencies to deploy force and intimidation to implement his anti-people economic policies, after having sold out to international finance capital and the imperialist metropolis of the North-Atlantic Western powers.
The ADF wishes to call on President Tinubu to retrace his steps by reviewing his draconian economic policies before it gets too late. He should review his anti-people policies now instead of using crude tactics to crack down on leaders of mass organizations thereby plunging Nigeria to another ugly era of extreme authoritarianism and totalitarianism.
The ADF supports the intervention of popular-democratic organizations, the labour movement and civil society groups in their opposition against Tinubu’s vicious economic policies. We appreciate the fact that the Nigerian labour movement today represents the only strong banner of opposition that can challenge the Tinubu administration after the National Assembly and the Judiciary have been weakened. This explains the desperation of the regime and its determination to decimate the leadership of the labour movement.
The ADF also condemns without any iota of equivocation, the invasion of the offices of the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Projects (SERAP) in Abuja by security agencies.
The invasion of the Abuja office of SERAP followed an ultimatum made by the Organization to the Tinubu administration to reverse the current petroleum price hike introduced by NNPC which is an agency of the Federal Government.
ADF believes that there is no way Nigeria’s democracy can be consolidated under horrible economic policies where the masses are traumatized by poverty and pestilence.
Prof. Ukachukwu Awuzie,
National President, ADF.
Abia Onyike,
National Secretary, ADF