Let Protesters Breathe!

Let Protesters breathe!

By: Adeniyi Adekola

I have been hearing a couple of pro-government propagandists insinuating tribal undertones for the proposed protest. The Yorubas of Lagos have hijacked various platforms to say no protest should hold in Lagos; rather people should go to their states to protest in an indirect allusion to the obidients believed to be predominantly of Igbo extraction.As much as I would not be involved in faning the embers of discord at times like this, I still believe that our senses of fair reasoning must be alive. it was this same ethnic bigotry that beclouded the yorubas cum emilokan movement. Now, instead of deep thinking, the noise is just about non-yorubas wanting to destroy yorubaland. Is it the people who have their investment in the so called yoruba land who wants to destroy the land? or these economically valuable entities who pay their taxes in your yorubaland, or the same people whose numbers are of great value to your population for the purpose of enumeration (census)? Would there hereafter be a moral justification for the government of yorubaland to demand that these ‘aliens’ go to their states during census or that they should pay taxes to their state coffers instead of Yorubaland?My people, we can not all be bewitched. if tribal bigotry and ethnicity would make many turn blind eyes to the wickedness emanating from the throne at Aso-rock, we can not say those who want to express their grievances should not do so; it is sheer witchcraft!I will seize this opportunity to let those who want to protest know that it’s their constitutional right. However, I plead for caution and maturity. Make it peaceful if you have to; because violence and destructive expressions don’t solve the problems but only add to it. Every Nigerian can freely live anywhere within Nigeria. The word ‘freely’ accommodates the right to protest also. Please let PROTESTERS breathe!