National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has denied that it was bribed to suspend the planned protest.
Gatekeepers News reports that the leadership of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has debunked speculations that it was bribed to suspend the planned nationwide Democracy Day protest on June 12.
The National public relations officer of NANS, Comr. Ezenagu Victor while addressing Journalists in a press conference to mark Nigeria’s Democracy Day in Enugu, South-East, Nigeria, said the student body suspended the protest immediately it discovered that some politicians with different agendas had perfected plans to hijack the protest to cause mayhem in the country.
Victor explained that NANS seriously believed in the use of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) which had helped to reduce the frequency of students nationwide protests.
He also noted that the suspension of the protest is necessary to avoid a clash of interest and clash with security agencies that are on red alert to protect the nation’s infrastructures from security breaches on the proposed date as a result of many other protests slated for the same date.
He said, “All along, we chose June 12th as a day all Nigerian students would come out to protest against the insecurity in the country, especially the serial abductions of students. Very close to the planned date, some politicians with different agendas fixed their protest on the same day and demanding that “President Buhari must go”. Because that was not our plan, we decided to suspend the protest.
“Talking about the allegation of taking bribe from the federal government to suspend the planned protest, If we were bribed to stop the protest, we wouldn’t have been cruder in addressing this administration as a failed one.
“Obviously, Nigerians and Nigerian students are livid and irate because our joy has been turned to sorrows and our hearts broken by the pain and brutality that our fellow students have suffered in recent times ranging from the abduction of students of Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, #ABU 7, to the abduction of over 20 students of Greenfield University, down to Niger State and several other states. So many students have also lost their lives as a result of the clashes between the security agents and unknown gun men which have led to Nigerian students living in perpetual fear.
“Painfully, we live in a nation where students numbering over 200 can be easily kidnapped and taken out of their schools/town without any form of resistance from the security agencies, this calls for serious concern. We have waited so long for the security around schools to be greatly improved to ensure our students are secured but we have seen little or no improvement.
“These incessant cases of banditry, herdsmen attacks, operations of the unknown gunmen and kidnapping of our students call for a radical and urgent move by the government to salvage the situation. We have been daunted by the unending news of killings across the length and breadth of the nation such that death appears normal in our society today. These developments are not only unacceptable; they portend great dangers to the very essence of our national unity, progress and development”.
He said it was unacceptable for the nation to be celebrating democracy “when the masses cannot enjoy the dividends of democracy.
He also called on the governments at all levels to rise up to the occasion and secure the lives and property of Nigerians which is their first and most important constitutional duty.
