Emmanuel Ugwu, Umuahia
With the rising penchant for sundry groups to embark on street protests in Abia over one grievance or the other, Life Savings Assistance Response and Rescue Support Foundation, a nongovernmental organisation, has commenced campaigns to make people understand the need to make protests peaceful.
The foundation which describes itself as “an organisation that cares for lives and properties of people” said that people have the wrong notion that protest must be violent to make the desired impact.
Addressing journalists at Aba, the legal adviser of the group, Mr. Chinedu Nwoye said people need to be educated and enlightened to imbibe the spirit of pouring out their grievances without hurting the public.
He said that the organisation was worried by the likely disastrous effects of protests being planned by some groups, which he didn’t name.
“We are not against protests, but we are for peaceful protests,” he said, adding that people have constitutional right to protest.
The legal practitioner explained that nobody benefits from violent protests because “if a protest turns violent lives and properties are at risk”.
He noted that Abia State has always been a peaceful state and it should not lose such enviable status just because people feel they have the right to express their anger over an issue.
“We don’t want the current peace that the people of Abia state are enjoying to be disrupted,” he said.
Nwoye stated that the campaign against violent protests would be sustained, adding that all well-meaning individuals and groups should join the campaign for a peaceful society.
He urged the police and other security agencies to be at alert and ensure that organisers of any protest are identifiable and should ensure that nothing went wrong during and after the protest.
