Residents’ discontent with the devastating effect of the government’s economic policies was first expressed in Lagos last month when Lagos traders screamed at the convoy of President Bola Tinubu, saying, “Ebi n pa wa o” (we are hungry), which went viral on social media. Other cities across the country have since joined the hunger protests. On Monday, some residents of Ibadan, Oyo state, protested the economic hardship.

Residents of Kano, Ogun, Niger and Sokoto states had earlier staged protests while organised labour has announced a nationwide protest for February 27 and 28 over the rising cost of living. Northern traditional rulers and leaders have also been reacting to the present harsh economic realities with veiled threat on the Federal Government which is being resisted by other geo-political zones.

The Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Abubakar, while speaking at the 6th executive committee meeting of the northern traditional rulers council (NTRC) which held in Kaduna state last week , lamented the economic hardship in the country, saying Nigerians were angry and hungry and the country was sitting on a keg of gunpowder. “We have reached that level, people are very agitated, people are hungry, they are angry. Let’s not take it for granted that people are quiet, they are quiet for a reason because we have been talking to them, we have been trying to tell them things will be okay and they keep on believing.

“I pray to Almighty Allah that they will not one day wake up and say we no longer believe in you and that would be the biggest problem because we can’t quieten these people as traditional, spiritual leaders and diplomats forever”, the Sultan said.

On his part, the Emir of Kano, Aminu Ado Bayero, who hosted the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, in his palace sent her to the president, saying, “tell your husband that Nigerians are suffering. Although, we have several means of communicating to the government on our needs and requests, you are the surest way to tell the President the happenings in the country. We get information daily that essential commodities and cost of living are high and people are suffering, although it didn’t start with this government. We know the government is making efforts but it should redouble efforts to ease the suffering faced by the people”.

Another northern elder, Professor Usman Yusuf, former Executive Secretary, National Health Insurance Scheme, while featuring in Arise television programme, The Morning Show, said, “all the traditional rulers in the north have run out of excuses and there was nothing more they could do to stop the anger of their people. The silence of the people in the north in spite of all the suffering they are going through is more lethal than the noise anywhere in the country”. He then wondered why the people of the south east were quiet and did not join the nationwide protests.

An Igbo man responding to Professor Yusuf in a viral video saying, “what has Tinubu done in his seven months in office that Buhari did not do more than three times? You in the north should stop threatening people when things don’t favour you. Nigeria is above all these rhetoric from the north. Anything that wants to happen now should happen, Tinubu is the president and he will be there for eight years and everybody should learn to adjust. If the hunger becomes too much, we should all go back to farming but the threat from the north is unacceptable because you guys were there for eight years and you did nothing to change the Nigerian system, you did nothing to restructure the nation, you did nothing to improve the well-being of the people”.

Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, Igbo socio-cultural organisation, meantime, directed groups in the south east region not to join the protests against the administration of President Bola Tinubu. President-General of the organisation, Chief Emmanuel Inwuanyanwu, while describing the current economic crisis in Nigeria as unfortunate, challenged those who were asking the people of the south east to join the hunger protests to say what they did when Igbo land was disenfranchised in the past. “I am directing that no Igbo group or community in Nigeria or in the diaspora should join any protest against this government,” Iwuanyanwu said.

END.