Presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, said the looting of warehouses and shops by hoodlums was not necessarily caused by poverty but by the pandemonium that accompanied the #EndSARS protests.
The government also rejected the Amnesty International’s report on the tragic incident saying that Amnesty could not have more facts about the country than the Presidency which has a ‘helicopter view’ of things happening in the country.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme, on Thursday, Adesina said attributing the looting to poverty was like justifying armed robbery.
“Criminality is criminality. Would it justify armed robbery because the man was poor? Would it justify armed robbery because the man didn’t have money? 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,” he said.
Adesina claimed the protracted protests provided an atmosphere for looting to take place.
He said if police stations were not burnt down, there wouldn’t have been a breakdown of law and order.
The President’s spokesman said, “Criminality will always be criminality and mere anarchy promotes criminality. What has happened in the last two or three weeks led to what has happened now. If there was cohesion and tranquillity in society, this wouldn’t happen.