Ilorin and Abuja, Nigeria – For the second time in two months, angry protesters in several cities across Nigeria are trooping out to denounce biting economic hardship in the West African country and to call for change.In the capital Abuja on Tuesday, police fired tear gas canisters into crowds of demonstrators as they marched and screamed chants of “no more hunger” and “end bad governance
Hundreds more people were arrested and multiple people were shot dead during the initial round of protests in August. However, this time, protestors were eager to be heard despite worries of another crackdown as police aggressively deployed to possible demonstration areas across the country.
Juwon Sanyaolu, the head of the Take it Back campaign, an advocacy group leading the protests, told Al Jazeera from Abuja, “The ordinary people are suffering, but this government doesn’t care because they cannot feel the pulse of the ordinary people.”
Organisers timed Tuesday’s demonstrations to coincide with the country’s 64th Independence Day celebrations, marking Nigeria’s freedom from former colonial ruler Britain in 1960. However, many say there’s very little to celebrate when large numbers of the 200 million population struggle to survive while government officials are living large.
Tagged #FearlessInOctober, the protests’ demands, Sanyaolu said, were for the government to end hunger by discarding fiscal measures recommended by the World Bank that have led to higher fuel prices – measures the activist called “anti-poor