Activist VDM led a Tinubu Must Go protest in Abuja on Thursday, drawing hundreds to the Three Arms Zone over worsening insecurity across Nigeria.
The demonstration began at exactly 9:47 a.m. along Constitution Avenue, less than 400 meters from the gates of the National Assembly. By 10 a.m., the crowd had swollen beyond what organizers expected. Police in riot gear formed a cordon. Nobody moved.
VDM Confronts Security Forces Outside National Assembly
Verydarkman Gbefwi, the Lagos-born video blogger and rights agitator known across social media platforms as VDM, stood on an upturned plastic crate and bellowed into a megaphone. “This government has failed the ordinary Nigerian,” he told reporters gathered at the barricade. “People are dying in Plateau, in Benue, in Zamfara. Bandits collect taxes in the north. Kidnappers name their price in the south. And Aso Rock is silent.”
He was not alone. Civic groups, market traders who shut stalls in Garki to make the journey, and at least 3 university students from the University of Abuja joined the procession. One woman held a placard that read, “BRING MY BROTHER BACK.” She said kidnappers seized him in Kaduna State 11 weeks ago and the family had heard nothing from security agencies since. But the minister of police affairs did not appear. The National Security Adviser’s office released no statement. Nobody from the presidency acknowledged the crowd standing in 38-degree heat on Constitution Avenue.
“Tinubu Must Go” Chants Halt Traffic for Four Hours
Traffic on the Herbert Macaulay Way axis ground to a stop from roughly 10:15 a.m. By 2:30 p.m., federal civil servants on lunch break stood at windows and watched. Okada riders parked their motorcycles and listened. The protest was not entirely without warning. VDM had posted a 14-minute video on his social media channels on Wednesday night, calling supporters to gather at Eagle Square before marching toward the Three Arms Zone. The video clocked over 800,000 views before midnight. By 6 a.m.
Thursday, WhatsApp groups across the Federal Capital Territory were circulating the route. And the numbers showed. Police estimated 600 demonstrators at the peak. Organizers put it closer to 1,200. Inspector Yakubu Sule, FCT police public relations officer, confirmed in a statement that operatives maintained “a peaceful and professional presence” throughout, though he cautioned that the protest had not received formal clearance under the Public Order Act. He told reporters that no arrests had been made as of 3 p.m. VDM disputed that framing directly. “They came to intimidate,” he said by phone, minutes after the crowd began to disperse. “Three police vans sat at our flank the entire time. That is not protection. That is pressure.”
Security Deaths Fuel Protest Rage
The anger driving Thursday’s march is not abstract. It has a body count. The National Bureau of Statistics recorded 1,847 conflict-related deaths in the first quarter of 2026, a figure obtained from a document seen by NaijaDesk. Banditry in Zamfara State alone claimed 214 lives between January and March. Farmers in Benue have abandoned over 60,000 hectares of cultivable land because herdsmen-farmer clashes made planting a death sentence. Plateau State recorded 4 separate attacks on rural communities in the 10 days before Thursday’s march. Each attack lasted under an hour. Each community was left without a functioning health post or a police station within 15 kilometers. “The president travels,” said Comfort Danjuma, 34, a petty trader from Mararaba who took a bus at 7 a.m. to reach the protest. “We bleed.”
What Happens Next for the Tinubu Must Go Movement
VDM announced before 4 p.m. that the Tinubu Must Go coalition plans a second, larger protest in Lagos on June 25. He said organizers would file formal notification with the Lagos State Police Command by Monday. Whether the federal government engages or continues its silence before that date will tell Nigerians something important. By 4:15 p.m., Constitution Avenue had cleared. The plastic crate was gone. The megaphone was packed into a Sienna bus headed back toward Nyanya. But the “Tinubu Must Go” message had already travelled far and wide.
