Rights Activist, Omoyele Sowore List Out 43 Reasons Why Nigerians Must Protest On October 1, Boycott Independence Day Celebration

Rights Activist, Omoyele Sowore List Out 43 Reasons Why Nigerians Must Protest On October 1, Boycott Independence Day Celebration

The Coalition for Revolution (CORE), the organisers of the #RevolutionNow protest, had announced plans to hold a mass action against poor governance in Nigeria on October 1.

Human rights’ activist and Amnesty International-designated Prisoner of Conscience, Omoyele Sowore, has urged all Nigerians to join the planned nationwide protest on October 1 – Independence Day – in Nigeria.

The Coalition for Revolution (CORE), the organisers of the #RevolutionNow protest, had announced plans to hold a mass action against poor governance in Nigeria on October 1.

The protest is necessitated by nine demands, according to a statement by CORE’s co-convener, Baba Aye, and co-convener, Gbenga Komolafe. 

Among their demands, is the recognition of those who died during the #EndSARS protests as national heroes, with a national apology. 

They complained that the Muhammadu Buhari-led government took “the incompetence, corruption, and repressive tendencies of the country’s ruling class to the height of infamy.” 

They also lamented that tens of thousands of workers had been sacked while many more had suffered salary cuts. 

“Farmers cannot access seedlings and other agricultural inputs. Traders and other informal economy workers have no access to credit.

“The country’s public health and education facilities are in terrible states. Doctors are on strike; other health workers are warming up for a strike. And university teachers are also likely to go on strike soon. All these are because the regime refuses to respect collective agreements reached with their unions.

“Even our very lives are now in jeopardy. Physical insecurity has also become the order of the day. More than 4,000 people have been killed and at least 3,100 kidnapped this year alone. Several families have become bankrupt as they sold all they had to pay kidnappers,” they complained.

Sowore in a Facebook post on Saturday also lent his voice to the October 1 protest.

He said, “We are sorry. We are not doing Independence Day this year due to tyranny, oppression, corruption, nepotism, return of SARS, terrorism, killing of Shiites, extra judicial killings of #IPOB members, non-payment of salaries and wages, insecurity, high school fees, high food prices, spike in electricity tariffs, social media bills, hate speech bills, detention of dissenting voices, discrimination against minorities, pollution of Niger Delta environment, medical tourism by Nigerian rulers, bad roads, no electricity, lack of funding for education, high perks for useless lawmakers and ministers, killing of our soldiers due to embezzlement of monies meant for fighting equipment, oppression by landlords against tenants, police brutality, terrible foreign policies that lets Ghana and South Africa oppress our people, incompetence at all levels by the Muhammadu Buhari regime, round tripping of dollars, suppression of self-determination activists, disobedience of court orders by lawless DSS, kidnapping of school children, rewarding banditry, currency manipulation by the CBN Governor, rigging of elections by INEC and State SIECs, Twitter ban, harassment of small business owners, crypto ban, illegal raids and arrests, illegal and corrupt acquisition of killer foreign loans, killing of corruption cases for political gains, serious bribery and corruption, encouragement of crippling worker’s strikes, Etc #endsars #revolution #arevolutionnow #Buharimustgo #occupynigeria2 #RevolutionNow.” 

Independence Day is an official national holiday in Nigeria, celebrated on the first of October.

It marks Nigeria’s proclamation of independence from British rule on 1 October 1960.