There are fears that #EndSARS demonstrators will take to the streets of Nigeria in the next two weeks if it is perceived that the government has set up judicial panels across the country to buy time.
Former Nigerian Minister of External Affairs Professor Bolaji Akinyemi expressed this when he featured on ARISE News on Wednesday and called on the federal government to urgently address the issues raised by the protesters.
“The government should at least give the youths the impression that you have not set up all these panels to buy time, but that you are really genuinely and seriously interested in addressing their issues.
“I will say and let me believe I am wrong, the judicial panels have just two weeks to address all these issues before the youths come back to the streets,” Prof. Akinyemi said.
He said like the #BlackLivesMatter, the #EndSARS demonstration has gone beyond stomach infrastructure and more of a call for good governance that will address the concrete issues that face the country.
The professor of political science noted that the way forward for Nigeria will be for the government to utilize the Justice Mohammed Uwais report on electoral reforms and the 2014 national conference report which he believes addresses the issues confronting Nigerians.
“We told government because I was part of that conference that the United Nations said Nigeria needs 1.5 million policemen, we have only about 350,000 and we were recommending that the Nigerian government should employ 750,000 more policemen.
The military also should employ more military men just to soak up the unemployment but at the same time provide security for the country.
“What we’ve seen in the past two weeks is that we don’t have enough men in uniform to guarantee security in this country if every part of the country decides to blow up. So you serve two purposes employment and security and those are things you can do immediately,” the former Minister said.
According to Professor Akinyemi, restructuring is also key to solving the many problems facing the country.
“We have just seen how every governor was scrambling around in the past two weeks, if you allow each state to have its own state police you wouldn’t.
“I have heard of a situation where the streets took over even governance in almost every state, so restructuring is that you allow things to be done at the local level,” he said.
By Abel Ejikeme
