Not everybody that participated in the looting that followed the hijacking of the EndSARS protest did because of hunger or anger, but out of sheer criminality.
The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, made this declaration on Thursday.
Adesina who featured on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme said the breakdown of law and order led to the looting.
“My view is that it is not everybody that is hungry that engaged in that looting,” he said.
Adesina said there was no justification for the looting, stressing that “Criminality is criminality.”
His words: “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 going on because it is pure criminality.
“My view is that it is not everybody that is hungry that engaged in that looting.
“This is the truth, it is greed and pure criminality.
“Criminality will always be criminality and anarchy promotes criminality.
“What has happened in the past two or three weeks led to what is happening now.”
The president’s media aide said if there was cohesion and tranquility in the society, there would not have been looting.
Adesina argued further: “Therefore, it is a corollary to the near anarchic situation that came on the country because of the protest.
“If you did not have people burning police stations, killing policemen, burning private and public property, you won’t have this kind of looting.
“That means those same people will be in society and will find ways to eke out a living but because the situation was created for near-anarchy that is why you have this.
“So, I don’t agree that it is all about poverty.
“Yes in any country, you will have people that are poor, hungry…that is one of the reasons you have the government to ensure that the number of the poor reduces progressively.
“So, this crowd of people you see going to loot are not necessarily hungry or angry.
“They are taking advantage of the collapse of law and order that came as a result of the protest.”
