United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed says the #EndSARS protest which rocked Nigeria for several weeks in October was a fallout, like other protests around the world, of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I have to say that there are lots of protests around this world that have been exacerbated by COVID because COVID has left people out of work, left people hopeless because of the socio-economic impact and in many of those protests,” Mohammed, Nigeria’s former environment minister, said on Monday.
The UN Deputy Secretary-General led a delegation of UN senior officials to see President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres had condemned the shooting of #EndSARS protesters by men in military uniform at Lekki toll gate, Lagos on October 20.
On Tuesday, Mohammed tasked women to take over leadership from Buhari in 2023.
“That is my hope and I do not see that there isn’t a woman that cannot do that. I always believe that you should strive for that aspiration and don’t fail for want of trying,” she said on a television programme in Abuja.
“So, women should stand up. They have 50 per cent of the votes and if they can convince the ‘hes’ for ‘shes’, the men who support women, then absolutely why not? There is no reason why a woman cannot lead Nigeria.”
