A pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Coalition of Oodua Self-Determination Group (COSEG), has said that convocation of a national conference is the only way to address several agitations going on in Nigeria, including the recent #EndSARS protest that took place in most parts of the country.
Early last month, the youths of Nigeria began a peaceful #ENDSARS protest to challenge the evil of police brutality in the country, which has been going on for decades in Nigeria with the police authorities and the federal government doing little or nothing to stop the intimidation and sometimes extra-judicial killings that are carried out in the country by officers and men of the police.
But on Tuesday October 20, 2020 the Nigerian military did the unthinkable by shooting live bullets at the protesters, which the global community has condemned in strong terms. Following the shooting, which many were alleged to have been murdered in cold blood, tempers rose in Nigeria and hoodlums who have been lurking by the wings of the peaceful protest descended on the different warehouses across the country where the government were also alleged to have hoarded the coronavirus (COVID-19) palliatives and looted everything. The looting also extended to violent destruction of both government and private investments in the country.
As a way forward for all of these, COSEG in a statement issued in Lagos on Tuesday called on President Muhammadu Buhari to liaise with the National Assembly in order to begin a process that would lead to the convocation of a National Conference, where leaders of ethnic groups, professionals, traditional rulers, youth groups, civil society groups and representatives of governors from each region will come together, discuss and agree on the way out of the present situation.