By Princess Simon (Bureau Chief North Central, in Minna)
Claims by the Niger State Governor, Mohammed Umar Bago, that protesters who barricaded exit and entry points into Minna, the state capital on Monday morning, were looters waiting to corner trailers of food items from then south to northern beneficiaries have been debuked by the aggrieved youths.
Governor Bago addressing journalists on the event that jolted Nigerlites causing uneasy calm among residents, said the protesters mostly women and youths had laid siege on the highway with the intentions to loot northern states bound trailers of food stuff from the south.
Bago who claimed that some people had alerted the women who immediately mobilized and blocked the highways as early as 7:am before they were joined by some youths said, “They were told that a trailer loaded with some essentials was heading towards Minna and had planned to loot the items and that was why they decided to block the roads”.
He said the state government was already looking at possibilities of addressing hunger and hardship, adding however that some arrests have been made in connection with protest and that they will soon be prosecuted and those found culpable will face the full wrath of the law.
Governor Bago who nonetheless attributed the rise in the price of food stuff to the activities of middle men, who, according to him, traverse the local markets to buy, hoard food items and possibly export them to neighbouring countries, assured that something will be done urgently to avoid a repeat.
Recall that thousands of youths blocked major highways to register their anger and frustrations over the current hardship and the daily rise in the prizes of food stuff as the situation is becoming unbearable.
Apart from daily rise in cost of living, the protesters said the level of insecurity in the state and the country generally has made lives miserable for the ordinary Nigerians, hence their decision to defy the early morning cold harmattan weather to draw the attention of the government to their plight.
They argued amongst others that farmers can no longer go to their farms, children forced out of school because parents can no longer pay school fees, armed bandits, ritualists and kidnappers dictate the pace along highways which today is no longer safe as citizens now live at their mercy.
The youths carrying placards with diffrent inscriptions indicating, "We are dying of hunger". "Food stuff is no longer affordable for the common man". "This APC government has brought so much pains and hardship to Nigerians". "Armed bandits have taken over Nigeria". "Enough is Enough". NNL.