Police operatives have arrested a young man clutching a knife, as a protest against Nigeria’s worst cost of living crisis in decades, picks up pace across the country.
The man was arrested around the National Stadium in Abuja.
The protest has been themed: #EndBadGovernance and ’10 Days of rage’.
The man, bedecked in a wine and white T-shirt, looked terrified as police quizzed him on the object.
Around him, a crowd bellowed and bayed in anger.
The police have also been dispersing protesters with teargas canisters in Abuja.
Addressing journalists in Abuja, the Director of Mobilisation, Take It Back Movement, Damilare Adenola, lamented that the oppression under the president’s leadership had lasted too long.
He said, “The various court orders restricting protesters to particular locations are an aberration.
”Our presence here today is an announcement that we have been oppressed for too long.
“Today, we have risen. We saying to the president that unless President Bola Tinubu accede to our demands we will remain on the streets. We want to see the president on the street. During the protest, he was on the street.”
One of the leaders of the Take It Back Movement, Ayoola Babalola, said the show of force around the premises of the Moshood Abiola is an embarrassment to the nation.
He vowed that protesters would not be intimidated.
President Bola Tinubu and some ministers tried to dissuade the protesters from commencing the nationwide marches.
Inflation has ballooned across Nigeria since Tinubu ended the petrol subsidy regime and floated the nation’s currency in 2023.
