Media aide to President Buhari, Femi Adesina, Friday, said that his principal displayed self-restraint and tolerance during the #ENDSARS protests according to reports.

In an article he shared on his Facebook page, titled: ‘WE HAVE NOT MANY FATHERS,’ Adesina claims that President Buhari played a fatherly role that prevented the country from descending into anarchy.

According to him, “If President Buhari hadn’t exercised the restraint and tolerance of a father, at a time that even hitherto respected people instigated the protesters to carry on (and they promptly went underground when anarchy ensued), we would have been talking of something else in the country. The rivers of Nigeria could have turned crimson, and mourning and lamentations would have suffused the land. But we are thankful for the father in President Buhari, patient and enduring, almost to a fault.”

Such statements only prove the heightened level of the insensitivity of the political class towards the masses.

It can be recalled that in October, aggrieved young Nigerians took to streets to protest against police brutality and bad governance, hoping that the government would empathise with them and address the problems that have impoverished the masses and left many youths death. But what did they get in return? More oppression from the powers that be, eventually resulting in the needless death of young Nigerians.

Nigerians will never forget the #LekkiShooting where many youths were security operatives opened fire on unarmed protesters at the Lekki Protest ground. Not to forget that the president kept mute while all this was happening.

Even the international community can attest to this as they were very much in tune with how young Nigerians were being oppressed, thanks to Twitter. What kind of a father turns a blind eye while his children are ruthlessly murdered for demanding to be treated right?

And to make matters worse, those who were at the forefront of the protest have reportedly received several death threats, causing some to flee the country “for dear life.” In addition to that, some of the peaceful protesters have had their accounts frozen and have been tagged as terrorist just because they pulled their resources together to fund the protest which unfortunately got hijacked by state-sponsored hoodlums.

What decent father does such to his children? Adesina showering praises on the president despite the glaring fact that the protesters were terribly mishandled doesn’t come as a surprise to Nigerians because the political class is known for their insensitivity.

Uroupa Kiakubu