A pro-democracy organization, the Royal Peoples Platform (RPP), has taken a critical look at an attempt by some sections of the youth to occupy the Lekki Toll Gate on Saturday, February 13, 2021 and declared the plan “ill-advised, unnecessary and needless.”
The organization, in a release signed by its Leader, Prince Dare Aladekoba, said the plan, if carried out is likely to be counter-productive, saying, the step has the potential for escalating the security challenges facing the whole country.
The statement wondered what the aims of the planners were at a period the Lekki Toll Gate issue is being handled by eminent personalities that constituted the Judicial Panel of Inquiry set up by the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, warning that, no further avenue should be allowed to encourage hoodlums to visit more destructions on the heritages of the people of Lagos State.
While appealing to the planners to have a rethink on their planed action, RPP sensed the exercise could go the way of the previous one that went out of control of the planners when hoodlums and vagabonds hijacked it to cause mayhem of devilish proportion, admonishing that, the plan is better stopped than carried out for the benefit of all.
The group reminded in retrospective how the #EndSARS protest ended in disaster that led to the destruction of several heritages of the state that are now calling for reconstruction that would gulp whooping amount of money, suspecting that, those behind the February 13 plan are paid agents of destruction being sponsored by the enemies of the state.
“At this point in time, when the preoccupation of every right thinking person is expected to be on how to rebuild the state after the wanton destruction visited on it the last time, it would be fool hardy and out of place for anybody to agree to partake in any exercise that would further add to the problem on ground.
“The problem on ground is so enormous that Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu had to jet to Abuja to solicit for intervention of the Federal Government. And now that things are being sorted out in the state, any attempt at drawing the hands of the clock of progress back would be condemned and frowned at.
“What is expected of all of us is how to rally round governor Sanwo-Olu and his team to bail the state out of the #EndSARS predicament the state finds itself and not how to add to the problem. Robust dialogues and intellectual engagement to iron out knotty issues are civilised ways of doing things globally now. In a nutshell, the plan #OcuppyLekkiTollGate is, at this period, is ill-advised and needles to say the least,” the group declared.
The RPP therefore supported the reopening of the project to allow some revenues that would fast track the reconstruction of the state to come in, since its reopening is not likely to hinder the job of the panel of inquiry, advising that, the eminent personalities sitting on the matter should not be detracted.
In conclusion, the organization reminded the organizers of the protest the consequences of large gatherings against the COVID-19 protocols, the second wave that has been scientifically proved to be deadlier than its first coming, wondering why any kind of protest should be organised now that the whole world is observing social distancing, shunning crowd and masking up!
disaster.
