The Nigerian Political Science Association, (NPSA) has spoken on the #EndSARS protest that engulfed Nigeria recently, saying it was never about removing President Muhammadu Buhari from power or a North Versus South or a religious issue but a demand for good governance based on equity, transparency, accountability, social justice and development. The Association articulated this stand in a statement signed by Prof Aloysius-Michaels Okolie and Prof Gerald Ekene Ezirim, the president and Secretary-General respectively.
Conceding that the Nigerian State is bigger than any region, group or religion, the NPSA is, however, pointing out that knowledge of history should serve as a guide to resolving the current problem towards building a peaceful and a prosperous nation.
It is convinced the protest is an evidence that the Nigerian State has degenerated to a very low ebb and that “the incontrovertible is that governance deficit and reckless constitutional breaches have become glorifying norms which predispose the political class to act as paramount emperors who are totally disconnected from the governed”. The statement adds that what it calls inglorious practices pervade various levels of governance architecture in Nigeria.
The Association is up with ten key demands, two of them being for the Buhari government to leverage on the various conversations the protest has generated so as to embark on wide and far reaching reforms towards a New Nigeria and, two, fast-tracking negotiation with the Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU) with a view to ending that crisis.
The NPSA has Attahiru Jega, Ayo Dunmoye, Haruna Dlakwa, Asisi Asobie, Hassan Saliu and Adigun Agbaje and the two national officers, all of them professors of Political Science, as the trustees.
