By Deji Elumoye in Abuja and Ernest Chinwo in Port Harcourt
The Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) has demanded a halt to attacks, harassments and intimidation of young Nigerians who are peacefully demonstrating their frustration over how the affairs of their country are being conducted.
PANDEF specifically condemned the attack on #EndSARS protesters, especially in Edo State and Abuja, the country’s capital, and demanded an immediate halt to the attacks.
In a statement made available to THISDAY in Port Harcourt yesterday, PANDEF National Chairman, Air Commodore Idongesit Nkanga (rtd), demanded the federal government to commence an unbiased investigation of the incidents in order to bring to book all those behind the undemocratic actions across the country.
The statement read in part: “Pan Niger Delta Forum condemns in the strongest terms the brutalisation of peaceful protesters by hired hoodlums, and the police in various cities across the country, particularly in Abuja and Benin-city, Edo State.
“PANDEF demands the immediate halt to these attacks, harassments and intimidation of young Nigerians, who are peacefully demonstrating their frustration over how the affairs of their country is being conducted.
“We further demand the commencement of unbiased investigation of these incidents in order to bring to book all those behind the undemocratic actions across the country. This country belongs to all of us, including the youths, who are protesting. And we will not sit and continue to see our children being brutalised or killed. Enough is enough!
“PANDEF would like to warn those who think Nigeria belongs to them alone, and therefore, others have no right to protest against abnormalities in the country, that such act is no longer acceptable.
“If SARS, which virtually became a terror gang in some parts of the country, is strangely, being esteemed in another part, to the extent that they are calling for the retention of SARS, then there is a fundamental problem in the country.
“It was expected that President Muhammadu Buhari should have addressed these young people openly, and assuage their anger, instead of the deployment of the military and police against them, and allowing hired armed thugs to unleash terror on the peaceful protesters.”
