Popular Nigerian actor and filmmaker, Yul Edochie has reacted to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s claim that #EndSARS campaigners are terrorist. In an exclusive interview with The PUNCH, the thespian noted that peaceful protesters are not terrorists.

Edochie said, “So people who now come out for peaceful protests are terrorists? No. It’s funny, it just makes me laugh. It has to be the level of decadence in the country. Come on, we know the true terrorists. Recently, we saw the UAE brought out some names of Nigerians sponsoring Boko Haram. Those transactions moved from this country to wherever or from wherever into this country and the CBN did nothing about it only to freeze accounts of protesters. It’s unfortunate honestly, it just goes to show the level of corruption and decadence in the society that we’re speaking about. All we want is a society that works, a progressive nation, simple.

“Police should stop killing people and actually do the job that they are supposed to do which is to protect lives and property. You can’t have the police of a country against the people. That’s basically what the #EndSARS was about. For about 10 to 12 days it was very peaceful, I was part of it, proudly. But honestly, it is really unfortunate, Nigerians can see what we are up against. God will help us, I believe all these things will pass away. It will never be easy, that’s just the truth. Trying to get a country to work, not just for the young people but for everybody, it won’t be easy. They’re doing the wrong things. How can you start peaceful protests as a terrorist? I don’t even know what we are doing in this country.”

The actor further gave his opinion on the decision of the government to regulate social media. He said, “We have serious issues in this country and they are thinking of regulating social media. It should be the least of their problems.

“We all saw multitudes rushing to get garri, rice and noddles to eat. It’s heartbreaking, it drove me to tears. Any leader who watches those video should be having sleepless nights thinking of ways to rescue people from poverty. Social media shouldn’t be their problem, they should use social media to find out what the people are agitating about. It’s just sad.”