The protesters on Monday. | Image: PlatformAfrica
‘This APC government has brought so much pains and hardship to Nigerians’
By Mohammed Usman
Youths in Niger State have debunked claims by the state governor, Mohammed Umar Bago, that protesters, who barricaded exit and entry points into Minna, the state capital, on Monday were looters waiting to corner trailers of food items.
Some of the youths, who spoke to Nigeria News Flight said that they joined the women in the state to block the major highways to register their anger and frustrations over the current hardship and the daily rise in the prices of foodstuff as the situation was becoming unbearable.
Aside the daily rise in cost of living, the protesters lamented the level of insecurity in the state and the country, which they said, had made life miserable for the ordinary Nigerians, hence, their decision to defy the early morning cold harmattan to draw the attention of the government to their plight.
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They argued among others that, farmers could no longer go to their farms, children forced out of school because parents could no longer pay school fees, armed bandits, ritualists and kidnappers dictating the pace along highways which were no longer safe as citizens now live at their mercy.
The youths, carrying placards with diffrent inscriptions indicating, “We are dying of hunger. Food stuff is no longer affordable for the common man. This APC government has brought so much pains and hardship to Nigerians.
“Armed bandits have taken over Nigeria. Enough is Enough”.
But Governor Bago told journalists on Monday that the protesters, mostly women and youths, had laid siege on the highway with the intention to loot northern states-bound trailers of food stuff from the south.
Bago claimed that some people had alerted the women, who immediately mobilized and blocked the highways as early as 7:am before they were joined by some youths.
He said, “They were told that a trailer loaded with some essentials was heading towards Minna and had planned to loot the items and that was why they decided to block the roads”.
The state government, he said, was already looking at possibilities of addressing hunger and hardship, adding that some arrests had been made in connection with the protest, stressing that they would soon be made to face the music.
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