NorthCentral APC forum warns against nationwide protest, asks protesters to stay off region

The North Central All Progressive Congress, APC, Forum has warned all the groups planning to protest across the nation for whatever reason against the government to rethink and retrace their steps, saying that such a decision will be inimical to the progress of the country at this critical moment.

The forum claimed that President Bola Tinubu is trying his best to reposition the country and redirect it to the path of greatness, and so all he requires now is support rather than distraction in the name of any protest.

The forum’s Chairman, Saleh Mandung Zazzaga, stated this while speaking with journalists in Jos the Plateau State capital on Monday, expressing their opposition to any form of protest.

According to him, those calling for protest are not doing so for the love of the country but for their selfish reasons and cheap political points as many of them are being sponsored by forces who are enemies of the country and the government.

The chairman also warned protesters not to contemplate staging any protest in the North Central region, saying that the region and the North by extension are currently going through security challenges which the president is tackling through security operatives.

He further warned that any protest in the region can be hijacked by hoodlums to cause mayhem and threaten the lives and properties of law-abiding citizens.

Noting the spate of kidnappings, banditry and other violent occurrences in the region, he warned that the region cannot afford to have another reactiveness added to it.

Besides, he said, protests in parts of the region and the North often take an ethno-religious dimension which also culminates in killings between Christians and Muslims.

“An example of such protests which often turn violent and take an ethno-religious crisis is that of the #EndSars protest across the country which took such a dimension in Jos, the Plateau State capital, and we have to do a lot to tame it.

“I, alongside other eminent persons in Jos, went around calming the people down and to stop the violence, and we endured that Christians are protected in Muslim areas, and vice versa, and thereafter handed them to the police to unite them with their families safely,” he said.

He called on all their members across the region to mobilize vigorously and campaign against any form of protest in the region.

Zazzaga also urged the governors, religious leaders, traditional rulers and other eminent personalities in the North Central region to call all their wards to order and advise them against participating in any form of protest due to the peculiar situation of the region.