The Director-General of the Progressive Governors’ forum, Mr. Salihu Lukman has said that the recent #EndSARS protest was hijacked due to the inability of the protesters to have an organized and well-defined central leadership structure in charge of the movement.

Mr Lukman in a statement issued in Abuja said while the absence of a central leadership was a potent strategy to avoid any possible sellout or a clampdown on its leadership, the strategy however made negotiations with the government difficult.

The PGF DG further said that the youths need to help strengthen the nation’s political leaders to overcome their inertia towards interest negotiations, aimed at producing the needed compromises around major challenges facing her democracy.

Mr. Lukman added that the inability of Nigeria’s democracy to facilitate broader interest negotiations has produced so much widespread anger and animosity in the land.

He insisted that the disadvantage of protest with undercover or virtual leadership especially by young people in an emerging democracy like Nigeria obliterates the prospects for negotiations which contributed to making the protest vulnerable, resulting in the hijack by criminal elements and the widespread destruction and looting that followed in all parts of the country.