Presidential spokesperson, Femi Adesina has stated that the looting of warehouses and shops across the country was caused by #EndSARS protests and not poverty.
Adesina said this while appearing on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Thursday October 29. He insisted that attributing the looting to poverty, was like justifying armed robbery as anarchy ensued after policemen were killed and police stations including private and public properties were burnt.
He said;
“Criminality is criminality. Would it justify armed robbery because the man was poor? Would it justify armed robbery because the man didn’t have money? Just as you cannot justify armed robbery because a man was poor and took a gun to rob another person, you can’t also justify the looting.
“Criminality will always be criminality and mere anarchy promotes criminality. What has happened in the last two or three weeks led to what has happened now. If there was cohesion and tranquillity in society, this wouldn’t happen.
“Therefore, it was corollary to the mere anarchic situation that came on the country because of the protests. If you didn’t have people burning police stations, killing policemen, burning private and public property, you wouldn’t have this spate of looting.
“So, I don’t agree that it is all about poverty. Yes, in any country, you will have at any given time, you will have people who are poor, who are hungry and that is one of the reasons why you have government is to ensure that the number of poor and hungry people is reduced.”
However when it was pointed that Nigeria had become the poverty capital of the world, Femi Adesina averred that it was caused by 60 years of mismanagement of public funds which could not easily be addressed in two years. He added that President Buhari is committed to projects that will lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in the next 10 years.
