Angry residents of Osogbo, OSUN state capital on Monday trooped to major roads of the town to stage a pre- protest exercise against the real protest scheduled for tomorrow by the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
The protesters who converged at the popular Nelson Mandela freedom park, Osogbo as earlier as 9.00 a.m of the day, were armed with placards with different inscriptions that read:, ” No going back on the NLC scheduled planned strike,” “The untold hardships in the country now has become a pronounced one”, “There will be no retreat, no surrender until the present administration under the leadership of president Ahmed Bola Tinubu revive the country economy”, amongst others.
The agitators, who were youths, threatened to crippled every sector of the economy in the country if the dying citizens were not given attention by the government.
The protest Organised by various civil organisations like Joint Action Front (JAF), Coalition for Revolution (CORE), Osun Civil Societies Coalition ( OCSC) among others, charged residents of the state to join them in hundreds for mass participation in Tuesday’s rally Organised by the NLC.
However, when they left Mandela freedom park, they marched round the town and later rounded it up at the Ola-iya popular junction where they addressed the press.
Speaking on behalf of the protesters, Comrade Saka Lawal of the Osun Civil Societies Coalition said, “This protest is For a bigger protest, a larger and national one . We are here to tell the government to do the right thing we have come to tell Mr president to fulfil his promise the promise of president Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not to inflict the people is not to increase hardship on average Nigerians that is not his promise for us we understand that there is a lot of issues but we say don’t remove subsidy and give to governors”.
“The governors that have not been able to manage their resources effectively, why are you taking up the relief of the money that was made from poor Nigerians to give to the governors that is not sustainable and now, the price dollar is having an effect on the price of fuel and food. We are saying act right we are saying enough is enough we can’t continue like this, ” he submitted.
Meanwhile, there were heavy presence of security operatives on ground to ensure the peaceful demonstration was orderly carried out by the organisers
The security men comprising of mobile and conventional policemen, Directorate of the state security including the officers of the National Security And Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) were seen milling around the protest ground to ensure orderliness and peace.
