Nigeria risks losing a whopping N400 billion daily if the planned August 1 nationwide protest against hyper inflation and food shortage in the country holds.
This is a warning from the Centre for Promotion of Private Enterprises (CPPE) against the nationwide protest tagged #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria scheduled to begin on August 1 to end on August 10, 2024.
The Director/Chief Executive Officer of CPPE, Dr Muda Yusuf in a statement said the proposed nationwide protests portend grave dangers for the Nigerian economy which is already in a very fragile state.
He said: “The protests could inflict an estimated daily loss of N400 billion, if not properly managed. The consequences of such a huge loss for the country and the citizens would be very severe. There is a high risk of shutsdown and disruptions in major sectors of the economy. These include trade and commerce, manufacturing, entertainment, transportation, logistics, financial services, hospitality industry, agriculture, aviation, ICT, and construction sectors.
“This is in addition to risks to lives and properties of innocent citizens and corporate bodies. Safety of government assets are also at risk.”
Noting that over 90% of employed Nigerians are in the informal sector, Yusuf cautioned that employees in this space are dependent on daily income and any disruption to their economic activities beyond 24 hours could snowball into a major social unrest.
“This underlines the country’s vulnerability to prolonged protests,” he added.
He called on the Federal Government to expeditiously implement its economic stabilization plan to ease production costs and ultimately reduce inflationary pressures.
“Trade costs are still prohibitive and needs to be drastically reduced across board in a manner that would not undermine domestic production. High cargo clearing cost is a major factor driving inflation which needs to fixed urgently,” CPPE stated.
The Centre advised that revenue drive by the government should be managed in a manner that does not impose additional pressures on citizens and corporate bodies.
“There is also an urgent need to prioritize fiscal frugality and transparency in public sector in all tiers and across all levels of government coupled with appropriate signaling and messaging that reflect current economic conditions. These are essential to earn the confidence of the generality of the people.”
Meanwhile, the Centre commend the Inspector General of the police for acknowledging the rights of the citizens to protest and offering to protect the genuine protesters.
It however pleaded with the organizers of the protests to cooperate with the police to make the planned protests peaceful and orderly.
“The protest organizers should not offer a platform for elements in the country who have criminal intents and whose agenda is to inflict pains on innocent citizens and corporate organizations and destruction of public assets. We cannot fix a problem by promoting such negative tendencies.
“Additionally, the CPPE would like to advise that the duration of the protests should be short, possibly one day. Experience has shown that the chances of protests degenerating into chaos and anarchy increases with the duration of the protests. Prolonged protests create opportunities for hoodlums, miscreants and other criminal elements in the society to build momentum to unleash mayhem and destruction on the country,” Yusuf stated.
