The former spokesperson for President Bola Tinubu’s campaign, Josef Onoh, has explained that the South East’s lack of participation in the ongoing #EndBadGovernance protests is a demonstration against Nigeria rather than the Tinubu administration.
According to Onoh, the region’s hesitation to join the protests stems from Nigeria’s failure to recognize the South East as a vital part of the nation.
Onoh stated that other regions should not expect the South East to lead the current protests when the area feels excluded from leadership roles and important infrastructure projects in Nigeria.
His comments were in response to a tweet from Senator Shehu Sani, questioning the absence of protests in the South East, “Why did the South East refused to protest when many south easterners were supporting the protest?”
In a statement, Onoh said, “The South East is silent because the protesters demanded scrapping of the 1999 constitution and to replace it with a people-made constitution, without providing their own people-made manuscript for that new constitution.
“The South East is silent because the protesters demanded that the president should toss the nation’s legislative arm of the government, the National Assembly, and exhibited ignorance of the President’s lack of constitutional powers to scrap any arm of the government.
“The south east is silent because even under a democratic setting, the south east region is on high level of militarization, and the protesters are also chanting for military rule which would be more devastating to the region. The south east is silent because our silence has exposed the ‘real enemies’ of President Tinubu.
“The south east is silent because we do not have the political luxuries, influence, entitlement and benefits the regions participating in the protest have for they have continuously basked in its glory. The north have produced presidents, the south-south and south West but not the south east, hence we see it as a problem between husbands and wives while we are the houseboy. The same north asking why we are not protesting forgot they once told us we are a dot in a circle so why has the dot become important now?
“When we had tears to shed, no region whipped away our tears. When we had a voice to shout, they said we were mad. When we cared, they said we had other motives. Today we are the least represented region in the current administration, we feel we are not wanted, we feel we are hated, we feel isolated, we feel distant, we feel the current administration doesn’t care about us hence we have continuously lived under a state of hardship and hopelessness that we don’t have any more tears to shed nor energy to protest.
“We have been so traumatized to the extent that we now laugh rather than cry but our laughter is actually the highest level of walling. Unfortunately we feel the pain of the protesters, you cry and we hear your message loud and clear but unfortunately we are helpless to offer any support or join in your protest against our president. Our only message is ‘welcome to the club.’ Nigerians are suffering but we the south easterners have never known anything other than hardship and suffering. We are constantly treated like outcasts in our country.
“Irrespective of the above, I still believe in President Tinubu, he might not have all the solutions but if we come together as a nation irrespective of whether we like each region or not, I believe a variegated group must agree they want to be a people, preserving our tolerant permissive society and to achieve that we must have the will power to do so rather than protest.”
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