Leading Civil Rights Advocacy Group, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has expressed profound worry that the Federal Government “through her officials and heads of the security forces are circulating information that are creating panic and igniting tensions in the public space.”

HURIWA is therefore urging the Federal government officials to provide good leadership devoid of peddling of cheap, unsubstantiated claims and false intelligence about the decisions by some aggrieved Nigerians to stage peaceful protests against bad governance and unprecedented corruption and hunger in the country. The president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria should call his appointees to order so they stop forthwith the circulation of cheap lies that are orchestrating panic and tensions amongst members of the public.

“The fear by the central and state governments about the imminent nationwide protests by some aggrieved Nigerians said to be commencing on August 1st, has made several government officials at both the federal and sub-national levels to continuously Stoke on social tensions through all kinds of statements and claims that are absolutely unscientific and totally unacceptable,” says HURIWA.

HURIWA spoke against the backdrops that the minister of State for Youth development, Olawande Ayodele, urged Nigerian youths not to allow contents they see on social media push them into setting the country ablaze. He made the appeal when the Renewed Hope Ambassadors of Nigeria, led by veteran Nollywood actor, Zack Orji, paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja.

According to the minister, most of the contents on social media are lies being peddled by politicians to give President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration a bad name.

He said: "We are pleading, we are begging, we are appealing to everybody that we are sure that this country is in a safe hand, we should not allow political people to tell us things that are not correct, we should make sure that this five applications that we are using – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and everything – are not tools to destabilise the country.

HURIWA said the persistent dissemination of misinformation by government officials aimed at demonising the constitutionally guaranteed fundamental freedoms to hold peaceful demonstrations when the people are aggrieved about bad governance in the country, has contributed to the heightened state of fear, apprehensions and panic by Nigerians who expect that government officials ought to play the role of stabilising and good forces rather that agents of misinformation, peddling of false information and unsubstantiated intelligence.

HURIWA said the claim by the Minister of State for Youth Development Olawande Ayodele that people who are against the government are circulating false information using the social media, is not totally correct because even the publicly funded National Bureau of Statistics had officially designated Nigeria as the poverty capital of the world with well over 133 million people who are multidimensionally poor.

“Is this Minister of State for Youth Development Mr.Olwande Ayodele residing in the outer space for him not to be aware that the costs of living crisis is factually and existentially true in Nigeria? Is the minister of state for Youth development unaware that millions of Nigerians can’t afford most essential commodities including food items such as tomatoes, tubers of yams, sweet potatoes and proteins such as cow meat, goat meat and chickens because of the fact that their prices are way beyond the affordability of millions of hungry Nigerians?”

“Is the Minister of State for Youth Development Olawande Ayodele not aware that there is severe fuel scarcity even as over 60 million Nigerian Households are without any means of electricity supply, their family members drink dirty water and many have died from the cholera afflictions all over the federation? Nigerian youths don’t need to be misinformed by any opponent of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu because the youth are feeling the pinch of the severe economic adversities affecting millions of households in the country. Is the high inflationary trends, the constant devaluation and depreciation of the Naira and the unprecedented hike in pump price of fuel not the true Nigerian situation? Why does anyone need the social media information to provide the exact narratives of what everyone go through on daily basis in the country.”

The rights group has also through a media statement by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, condemned the tendencies by the heads of the Nigeria Police Force and the Nigeria Army to continuously inflict the public space with claims and statements about some foreign mercenaries hired to orchestrate the nationwide protests against the economic hardships affecting millions of Nigerian households.

“If the Inspector General of Police has the intelligence that foreign elements are involved in the planned nationwide demonstration, then let the police chief name those sponsors. For the Army too that claimed that some armed hoodlums would hijack the protests, the military should have immediately apprehended the armed hoodlums since the military have a working knowledge of these hoodlums and hand them over for investigation and prosecution by the police and the office of the Federal Attorney General and Minister of Justice. Instead, what the Nigerian public are persistently fed with, are half-truths, poorly scripted propaganda, and a whole bunch of claims that aren’t backed up by credible data and empirical evidence thereby contributing to a heightened state of fear, apprehensions and tensions all over the country.

“HURIWA calls on government and all those who hold public offices, to stop stoking up tensions in Nigeria and always disseminate informed and knowledgeable information and should desist from peddling rumours about the notices issued by some aggrieved Nigerians to stage peaceful protests. What the government should be working to achieve is to ensure that any protests that may be staged, are peacefully conducted and the security forces should stop any clandestine plots to import armed infiltrators to disrupt the protests as was experienced during the October 2020 #EndSars nationwide protests”.

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