Ahmed Lawan, the Senate President of Nigeria, has called on Nigerians protesting against police brutality and bad governance to halt the demonstrations across the country.
Lawan stated this on Sunday after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari and Femi Gbajabiamila, speaker of the house of representatives, at the state house in Abuja.
Lawan said the #EndSARS protest need to stop to give the government time to implement the demands.
He said: “Very critical to mention at this point is that since the protests have taken place, and the issues have been accepted, the time has come for the protests to stop because the government needs to have sufficient time, a clement environment to implement the demands of the protesters.
“We also need to have our economy to continue to go on. When you try to stop everybody from engaging in their businesses, closing the roads to markets and other economic places, we distract the economy of the country, and that is not the best way to go.
“If the issues had not been accepted, then there would have been genuine reasons to continue with the demonstrations. But since the issues have been accepted, we should give the government time to implement the issues.
“Therefore, I am taking this opportunity to appeal to our youth who are protesting, that the protests have already yielded the desired result.
“First of all, they said ‘end SARS’ — that was the beginning. SARS was ended, not by the IGP; SARS was ended by the president. President Muhammadu Buhari made a statement — a presidential statement, and that will be the first time that any president will say ‘end SARS’. And SARS has ended. The other issues followed.”
