ASHENEWS reports that the Niger state governor, Mohammed Umaru Bago says that the blockade of some roads in Minna, the state capital by some protesters was not a demonstration over rising food prices but a trick to loot vehicles conveying food items from some parts of the country through the state by criminals.
The governor stated this while briefing journalists on the incident on Monday at the Government House in Minna.
This online platform reports that protesting women and youths besieged the streets of Minna on Monday, chanting protest songs, while security agents including policemen looked on.
According to the protesters, the rising cost of food items and poor government efforts to arrest the situation forced them to block major roads so that the government would know and act.
The Deputy Governor of Niger State, Yakubu Garba visited the scene of the protest where he said that government is aware of the pain and hardship that families are faced with at this time.
But Bago, the Niger state governor, in his address said that security agencies had averted the incident by diverting the vehicles through another route out of the state before the rioters were dispersed.
”A group of syndicate follow trucks of food traveling from Lagos and mostly to the north and they cause gridlock in traffic in the name of demonstration like our today in an attempt to cause traffic while items of those trucks are looted. Thank God for the men of our security forces, that was averted.“
Bago said that some arrests have been made while security agencies have also been deployed to forestall further breakdown of law and order.
Already, he said that the government is in talks with the union of road transport workers to take precautions.
He also said that the federal government has reached out to the state on the issue and further action would be announced in due course.
The governor further urged residents to go about their normal businesses, assuring that the state government will continue to work towards easing the hardship faced by residents.
