The Concourse
Rumble, yes; thunder, no
– By Soney Antai
Finally, Nigeria has arrived at a pregnant, make-or-mar week, when the President Bola Tinubu government is about to face its toughest leadership test yet. In spite of the ill-advised grandstanding by folks like Messrs. Dave Umahi, Nyesom Wike and Bayo Onanuga, this government now knows it has some problems on its hands. Already, there are unconfirmed reports that some top politicians have started leaving the country ahead of the planned protests. If that is so, then it is a price they have started paying for unduly ignoring the rumble strips on our chequered national socio-economic and political road.
August 1 – 10 is the period pencilled down for mass protests over the mass hunger in the country. Whether that will become a reality, and what dimension, shape or form it will take, is yet in the wombs of time. The baby expected from this pregnancy of unknown or little known fatherhood, if not aborted, may define what happens in the country’s sociopolitical ecosystem in the days immediately following August 10, if it ever stretches that far.
Ever since some aggrieved Nigerians, speaking for the silent majority of their fellow citizens, announced that they would embark on protests against hunger in the land, the country’s political temperature has been on the rise, and nobody seems to be sure of what would become of Nigeria should the protests become violent. What is clear now is that the country is polarised between those in support and those against the protests, even as government’s palpable indifference has been blasted setting up panic alarms in their midst as evidenced in their tokenistic offerings to some people.
Those who bury their heads in the sand in this ongoing man-induced famine have shown that they are fugitives from reality. They see no hunger because they are part of the avoidable problem Nigeria is shamefully grappling with. Because they constitute a chunk of the weevil class, they don’t experience and don’t care about the pains the majority of their fellow citizens are undergoing. So long as their interests are served, the rest of the country can go to the dogs.
It is tragic that all that this administration is doing about the proposed protest has been its refusal to do anything profound about it. The same government operatives, including PBT himself, who were calling for GEJ’s head over attempt to raise fuel prices in 2012, are those now sounding as if peaceful protest is a capital crime. Their security agents are not helping matters even when they themselves are victims of the vicious economic illiteracy of the administration. Talk of Manchurian candidacy!
Make no mistake about it, only criminals would call for violent protests. So, embarking on violent protests would be stupid and self-destructive. It is nonetheless sad that even when protests against government are peaceful, the Nigerian establishment class oftentimes sponsor scumbags and suckers to spray violence over such peaceful protests to set up a reason to clamp down on peaceful demonstrators.
Last week, this column indicated that the planned protests might peter out faster than many think. The rationale for this submission was the roles of atavistic concerns like ethnicism, religion, regionalism and cronyism oftentimes play in such situations as we have on our hands. Already, we have seen that putting a strong showing in parts of the nation. At the same time, government, rather than addressing the issues raised by the brains behind the planned protests, has been talking to the wrong audience. It has played host to a number of religious and traditional rulers, requesting them to prevail on the youths in their domains not to protest. But how does that address the issues of insecurity, hardship, hunger, and hopelessness?
What the government doesn’t seem to realise is the fact that the aggrieved youths are so hungry and angry that they may not listen to these elders. That might not be out of disrespect for them, but out of frustration and a sense of desperation and hopelessness. They also would argue that these elders may not tell government to drop some of its anti-people policies, including the recycling of old spent political forces whose interest in public offices is to enlarge and solidify their hold on the country’s resources.
All the same, I still don’t see the day after the protests as bringing about the desired demands from the protesters. Several of their demands are far-flung, but legit all the same. While the right to peaceably vent their frustration is guaranteed by the nation’s constitution, security agents should provide security cover for the protesters to ensure it doesn’t tumble up the country. The government should as a matter of urgent national importance look into the complaints about famine in the land by dealing decisively with the issues of insecurity, including putting a stop to Fulani herder murderous activities, so that farmers can return to the farms. It should cut down on its extravagant spending on self-serving inanities, something they seem to never want to do. For too long our power elite have been ruling instead of leading, cornering instead of serving, and consuming rather than producing – an unhealthy mentality. They must halt their pleonectic, insensitive, grab-and-gulp approach to governance and not threaten the peace of this country.
It is commonsense that you must not beat up a child if you don’t want them to cry. But if you beat them up and prohibit them from crying, then you are guilty of crude behaviour.