— Urges govt to make fuel price, electricity tariffs affordable

By Johnbosco Agbakwuru

AS the national protest against hunger and bad governance enters the second day, a civil society organisation, has advised the organizers of the protest including the youths, students and other Civil Society Organisations, CSO, and Non Governmental Organisations, NGOs among others to embrace dialogue with the Federal Government on how to resolve the issues in contentions.

This is as the group has also told the government at the centre to make electricity tariffs, fuel price and cost of food items affordable to the common people.

The group, Civil Society Organization on Community Advancement and Humanitarian Empowerment Initiative, CSCHEI, an accredited platform for  coordinating, organizing, promoting and supervising Non Governmental Organizations, NGOs, Community Based Organisations, CBOs, and Faith Based Organizations, FBOs within the scope of Socio Economic Development, Community Enhancement and Humanitarian empowerment in Nigeria, further advised the protesters to violence as the embark on the protest.

The Director-General of CSCHEI, Hon. Kunle Yusuf in a statement in Abuja, highlighted the areas in which immediate reforms of the federal government would help to assuaged the concerns of the masses and the high cost of living.

According to the statement, “The present circumstances in Nigeria has demanded that Federal Government should as a matter of urgency start the processes of reforms that will accelerate development for Nigerians to quickly begin to enjoy dividends of democracy. Federal Government should consider

“Declaration of Emergency on Basic Health and Agricultural sectors. Once food is affordable for Nigerians to feed their families and they have access to basic healthcare, the  social apathy will decline drastically.

“Review Housing and Retirement Policies. When you are sure that at your retirement age, you can have an affordable house to accommodate your family and functional pension scheme is in place, certainly this will further drag financial corruption to barest minimum.

“Provide electricity and reaffirm hope for self employed Nigerians. Electricity, fuel and diesel are the immediate commodities that bind Nigerian masses together. Once there is energy sufficiency at reasonable rates for artisans to deploy their skills into productive activities, there will be drastic reduction in pressure on social fault lines.

“The communications desk and community engagements unit in Mr President’s office should upscale  performance on their duties and adopt work synergy among MDAs, and the appointees, to avoid administrative arrogance and conflict that may hinder the acceleration of eight point Agenda of this administration.”

CSCHEI also appealed to Nigerians to embrace what he described as, “Process Reforms not Commotion Protest”.

He explained that the country’s present economic stability is not resilient to withstand national strikes or prolog public protest.

“It’s on this note that CSCHEI appeals to leadership of CSOs, CBOs, NGOs, Youths, Students and all other critical stakeholders to embrace negotiations and give the government more chance for most of their intervention to mature,” the group said.

It further said, “Meanwhile, it is imperative that government escalates actions with appropriate quantum of intervention in order to diffuse the social fault lines  to avoid aggravating the masses into further agitation which always has a propensity to lead to social anarchy.

“We also want to use this opportunity to appeal to the state governors and local government council authorities to always give accurate information for the masses to know the interventions coming from the federal government. At this point in time appropriate dissemination of information is necessary.

“CSCHEI has set up a committee to go into action on public enlightenment, advocacy against extremism and radicalisation and friendly community engagement with the community leaders, religious leaders, civil society organizations, community based organizations to reduce the atmosphere of  tension in the land.

“In addition, we also understand that national development is a collective responsibility where everybody is a concrete stakeholder. Therefore patriotism should be adopted at all levels of leadership – both community and religious.

“Again, the Director General has directed that at least 20 CSOs, NGOs and CBOs in each state capital to start social engagement on emotional intelligence to moderate the sensibilities of people and sensitivity to the issues at stake.”