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Nelson Idoko, the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Forum for Integrity, called the demonstration outside NNPC Towers by a group identifying themselves as Niger Delta Youths “laughable and stage-managed” during a news conference on Wednesday in Abuja.
Protesters had called for Ojulari to step down as CEO and appointed a candidate from the Niger Delta to take over the company after accusing him of corruption and mismanagement.
The demonstrators, according to NFI, were not real Niger Delta youths or stakeholders.
“They were hired kids from the suburbs of Abuja who couldn’t even put a face on camera,” Idoko claimed.
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Furthermore, he emphasised that no area in Nigeria has the power to influence who is appointed president because the country is a federation.
For the first time ever, the Niger Delta is home to the FCT minister. Is that not the same Niger Delta? These baseless protests, he declared, would not succeed.
Idoko raised concerns about the protest’s timing, pointing out that it occurred the day after NNPCL said it was on the verge of fulfilling its OPEC quota in full for the first time in decades.
“Obviously, the timing was intended to drown out the enthusiastic applause this accomplishment received,” he remarked.
President Tinubu is in Brazil courting investors, therefore the timing of the demonstration is puzzling. “They even criticised his claim that Nigeria is a good place to invest and that the country is no longer corrupt,” he continued.
“The orchestrated antagonism against his well-thought-out reforms” must be stopped, the NFI pleaded with the president.
“We will give the names of those who funded these demonstrations and attacks on the media to the appropriate authorities so they can investigate and prosecute them,” the group announced.
In addition, NFI claimed that Tinubu should “fish out enemies within” who are taking money from the government while covertly helping opposition groups to depose him.