10 things President Buhari must do over the next 48 hours if he wants the anti-Sars protest to end peacefully

Ayo Akinfe

(1) He must go to one of the protest sites and address the youth, similar to the way President Yar’Adua went to the Niger Delta to address the militants. It was only that which ended the fighting and ushered in the amnesty programme

(2) He must sack Husaini Coomaisie, his so-called peace ambassador time the UN for calling for bloodshed and insulting our youth by calling them miscreants

(3) He must make it crystal clear that his government will never use violence against the Nigerian youth. A president is a servant of the people, so is obliged to do what they ask of him

(4) He must make a nationwide address offering timelines on when his government will meet all the demands of the protesters

(5) As funding is a big issue, he needs to free up money to fund the police. For now, the only area where I can see this coming from is the National Assembly. I thus want to see him send a bill to the National Assembly asking lawmakers to at least halve their salaries and allowances, with that money going to the police

(6) He needs to restrict government comments on the protests to just two people. Placing such a ban on his ministers, cronies, appointees, etc, is the only way he can distance himself from those hawks demanding a Tianemem Square-style crackdown

(7) He should ask the youth to form a negotiating team of 20 individuals and invite them to Aso Rock to thrash out a workable deal with the government

(8) Over the last fortnight, all these secessionist and separatist noises have disappeared. When Nigerians fight together, nobody talks about phantom republics. President Buhari must specifically thank our youth for bringing about unity and banishing ethnic divisions from our society

(9) With security being an issue, he simply has no choice other than to change his service chiefs and the inspector general of police. Their positions have become untenable

(10) As a goodwill gesture to the youth, the federal government must commit to paying the school fees of every Nigerian in a tertiary institution in 2020. Covid-19 has already disrupted the year and as a sign that the government appreciates their worth, it should enter talks with all schools to clear their fees. Those who have already paid should get the money refunded to them