The Department of State Services (DSS) has identified individuals behind the planned nationwide protest, according to a statement released on Thursday by Peter Afunanya, the DSS spokesperson. Afunanya noted that the agency is employing “non-kinetic measures and conflict resolution” to address the looming protest.
Reports indicate that youths across Nigeria are preparing to protest the escalating cost of living. The DSS has determined that this planned demonstration is “politically motivated.”
“While peaceful protest is a democratic right of citizens, the Service has confirmed a sinister plan by some elements to infiltrate the protest and use it to cause chaos and extreme violence in the land,” the statement reads. “It has also identified the reason behind the protest to be political.
“The plotters desire to use the intended violent outcome to smear the federal and sub-national governments, make them unpopular, and pit them against the masses. The long-term objective is to achieve regime change, especially at the centre.
“The Service has also identified, among others, the funding lines, sponsors, and collaborators of the plot.
“However, it does not think that aggression should be the first line of action in handling the emerging scenario.
“It has instead variously applied non-kinetic and conflict resolution strategies, including moral suasion, stakeholder engagement, and other multi-track diplomatic efforts, to dissuade the planners from actualizing their undesirable objective.”
Afunanya urged the “agitators” to use the “ample ways” available to them to express their grievances without resorting to violence.
“The Service calls on people of goodwill, leaders of thought, captains of industry, labor unions, student associations, youth leaders, civil society, clergy, NGOs, women’s groups, civil servants, and politicians to shun any invitation to participate in any orchestrated violence deliberately designed to cause disaffection in the country,” he said.
(cable)