Peace Walk: NGO Accepts Sanwo-Olu’s Invitation
...Says; ‘We are ready to tag along with the governor’
A Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), the Youth Advocacy Initiative, has accepted Lagos state Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu’s invitation to be part of a Walk for Peace he is going to personally lead, saying, “as our name implies, anything about peace, get us involved and on this, we are tagging along with the governor.”
A statement from the organization’s leader, Comrade Adekunle Akinde, the group expressed the conviction that, Sanwo-Olu’s initiative on the exercise is a clarion call to join hands together to build the state and foster unity and togetherness, urging all the categories of the invitees to turn up to honour the governor in his desire to ensure that peace reign supreme always in the state.
The NGO was speaking on the heel of the Governor’s speech of Tuesday, November 30, 2021, where he said, “in December, I will be leading A WALK FOR PEACE to herald the healing of our land” and use the opportunity to extend an open invitation to the youths, members of the diplomatic corps, civil society groups, students and the media as well as other stakeholders to join him.
Heeding the clarion call, the organization expressed satisfaction that Sanwo-Olu has charted a heart-warming course towards applying the required soothing balm for rapid healing of the bruises and wounds sustained during the ill-fated protest of last year code-named #EndSARS protest, giving the governor and his team pats on their backs for the thoughtfulness.
The statement expressed the NGO’s happiness that Sanwo-Olu, in his speech has reinstated his resolve to facilitate better communication between the youths and the state’s security machinery to resolve issues before they become intractable, admitting that such a step would make it easier for the young people to initiate formal complaints on human rights violations through the Ministry of Justice.
This, the NGO spoke further would also bridge the communication gap that always causes frictions between the youth and the government/security agencies, praising the governor in his attempt to study how to improve security policy formulation, information sharing, and clarifying rules of engagement in times of social unrest.
The organization also gave kudos to the governor’s establishment of “a mechanism to compensate all those who lost homes, businesses, and livelihoods to the violent destruction of October 2020,” adding that the planed detailed procedure for the just compensation of citizens with verified claims of police brutality committed during the protests is also praise-worthy.
The NGO, for the umpteen time, insisted t would be part of the Coalition of 70 Civil Society Organizations pulled together by the Campaign for Dignity in Governance (CDG), under the able leadership of that renowned human right activist and public commentator, Comrade Razaq Olokoba. Asserting that, “the Peace Walk is a project all well-meaning Nigerians should be part of.”
