Concerns resonating from the ten-day protest planned for August has the Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprises (CPPE), Muda Yusuf, warning that the fundamental actions are most likely to be attended by a great cost. He said that the economy stands to lose a whopping sum of N4trn.
In a statement on Saturday, Yusuf said the nationwide protest portend grave dangers to the trade and commerce, agriculture, and manufacturing amongst other sectors of the economy which is already in a very fragile state.
Hear him: “The proposed nationwide 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”.
This means that the ten-day protest on a daily loss of N400bn will cost the economy N4trn. He regrets that such a development has the tendency to disrupt major sectors of the economy.
The sectors Yusuf stated to record financial loss include, “Trade and commerce, manufacturing, entertainment, transportation, logistics, financial services, hospitality industry, agriculture, aviation, ICT, and construction sectors.
“Over 90 per cent of employed Nigerians are in the informal sector. Employees in this space are dependent on daily income and any disruption to their economic activities beyond 24 hours could snowball into major social unrest. This underlines the country’s vulnerability to prolonged protests”.
While noting that freedom to protest was a fundamental right of every citizen, the expert pleaded that the duration should not be long.
He said, “The protest organisers should not offer a platform for elements in the country who have criminal intentions and whose agenda is to inflict pains on innocent citizens and corporate organisations 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”.
He further urged the Nigeria Police Force to acknowledge the rights of the citizens to protest and offered to protect the genuine protesters.