By Bolanle BOLAWOLE
turnpot@gmail.com 0705 263 1058
Yesterday, the #ENDBADGOVERNANCE protests ran its full gamut. In the days, weeks, months and years to come, pundits, critics and analysts will continue to discuss, review, critique and draw useful lessons from it. Did it fail? Did it succeed? Have lessons been learned on both sides of the divide? Will the protagonists as well as antagonists of the protests organize and behave better in future? The answers will depend on who is providing them!
One thing is certain, however: No one will forget the protests in a hurry, just like we have not forgotten its precursor #ENDSARSNOW protests years after – the organizers; families, friends, loved ones and comrades of the victims; the government itself; those who had their hands smeared with the blood of the innocent, as well as those who had their conscience permanently seared in that episode – many are those who will go into their grave with their memories haunted by whatever role they played in the gory event of the massacre of defenceless Nigerian youths fighting for a better future for themselves and their fellow citizens.
Lives have also been lost needlessly in the follow-up #ENDBADGOVERNANCE protests. Those who genuinely meant well with the protests; the opportunists who took advantage of the honest grouse of patriotic citizens to stoke the embers of chaos and anarchy; those who, for selfish and self-serving reasons have an axe to grind and who stayed in their comfort zones home and away while instigating others to bring the roof down our head; the genuinely aggrieved, impoverished and long-suffering hapless Nigerians run ragged by decades of insensitive and oppressive government policies; the illiterate, uninformed hoi polloi always acting in a self-destructive manner; those who, in these protests, suffered unmitigated losses for no fault of theirs; and the government itself always caught flat-footed time and time again – all will reflect on the events of the last 10 days for a long time to come.
One of such reflections is printed here today. Titled “Grinding poverty and endless protests in Nigeria”, it is written by my comrade and classmate at “Great Ife”, Wale Olajire Ajao. Enjoy it! “In Nigeria today, grinding poverty co-exists with endless protests and agitations. Why? Precisely because the Nigerian Government has become notorious for generating poverty – from independence on October I, 1960 till today. How ? In the sense that the government since independence has not diversified the economy; corruption-cum-mismanagement has also continuously been on the rise.
Till date, Nigeria remains a mono-cultural economy that relies on income from the sale of crude oil in the world market. The Government all these years has not diversified its major source of revenue. The poor performance of this mono-product economy has been compounded by the steadily rising scourge of corruption unleashed on the country by its political as well as business class.
The first major shock to the economy came in 1980 under the civilian government of President Shehu Shagari when we suffered a sharp drop in revenue due to the fall in the price of crude oil in the global oil market. On December 29, 1983, the Shagari administration declared austerity measures aimed at restoring the fortunes of the economy.
In the first half of 1986, we witnessed another drop in the price of crude oil at a time the country was heavily indebted to international finance organizations. Military president Ibrahim Babangida devalued the Naira under what was code-named Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) which, actually, was the foundation of the economic hardship we suffer today.
From that time, we have ceaselessly battled with the very tough impact of currency devaluation. The long-run effects of currency devaluation and unending kleptomania in government over the years have resulted in the consistent co-existence of poverty and protests in the country, such that, by 2006, poverty had reached an incredibly high level. Millions of street urchins, almajiris, area boys and miscreants were produced by the system. Corruption has become endemic to the extent that, by 2015 when the immediate past president, Muhammadu Buhari, assumed office, our country was on top of the global corruption index published by Transparency International (TI), a non-governmental organization that profiles global corruption.
Also, by 2015, the total number of out-of-school children in Northern Nigeria alone had risen to ten million. All over the country during the same period, the total number of out-of-school children was not less than twenty million; with these constituting themselves into a menace, always hijacking otherwise peaceful protests and agitations and turning them into golden opportunities to loot and commit arson. The eight unbroken years of rudderless leadership under Buhari further aggravated our economic woes.
Under Buhari, youth unemployment rose to an unprecedented level. Insecurity became heightened and multi-faceted. Buhari succumbed to ethnic chauvinism as he condoned the atrocities of his kinsmen-herdsmen, noticed at first in Benue and Plateau states but this later spread all over the country like bush fire in the harmattan.
The painful result of the criminal activities of the Fulani herdsmen and a few retaliatory attacks by farmers is the drastic reduction in food production all over the country, which has now been compounded by fuel subsidy removal, electricity subsidy removal and floating of the Naira, despite the fact that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu ought to know that as an import-dependent mono-cultural economy, a combination of these policies in a single stretch without carefully-prepared palliatives already put in place would unleash unimaginable hardship on the citizenry.
His hopes, and pleas, were that as time goes on, significant economic improvement would compensate for the period of hardship. Unfortunately, one year later, there has been no respite as inflation is on the rise everywhere and life has become harsher for the vast majority of our people day after day.
From May 29 last year, Tinubu has rolled out palliative measures after palliative measures, following his harrowing International Monetary Fund(IMF)-induced policies. Aside from the fact that the conception and manner of implementation of the palliative measures looked like an after-thought, that the palliatives also suffered diversion by highly-placed political actors has made matters worse.
By 2020 when the #ENDSARSNOW protests was embarked upon by the youths, youth unemployment nationwide had neared an alarming 40 percent; illiteracy was as high as 45 percent while poverty level hovered around 60 percent, in the midst of constant police brutality unleashed mainly on youths; eventually culminating in the #ENDSARSNOW protest which, as usual, was later hijacked by hordes of hopeless and helpless bad boys and girls produced by the Nigerian system. Having impoverished and neglected millions of our children and youths, should we expect normal behaviour from them? Until we give them the right training and proper upbringing, they will continue to remain a menace to society.
Therefore, it was tragic that the President’s speech on Sunday, August 4 said nothing about this group of young persons. Given his pedigree as an anti-military dictatorship activist, one was surprised that Tinubu repeated the mistakes of previous leaders. What mistakes? Reacting to the #ENDBADGOVERNANCE protests the same way Buhari and the Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, reacted to the #ENDSARSNOW protests.
Thus, the predictable cycle of protests, looting and arson followed by the concomitant police brutality we are all familiar with, has been unleashed on our psyche again and again. Everyone goes home after a peaceful protest has turned violent and our children have been killed by our own police men who usually justify their action with the cliche “Government cannot fold its arms while the enemies of government destabilize the country!” This unending vicious cycle is what has played out since August 1st when the #ENDBADGOVERNANCE protests broke out across the country.
Rather than put strong preventive measures in place, the authorities waited until miscreants and anti-protest forces joined the fray before the security forces started shooting live bullets and firing tear gas cannisters indiscriminately, to the extent that even journalists going about their legitimate duty of reporting the protests and innocent, peaceful protesters and passers-by got engulfed, with many losing life and limbs to the bargain.
At this juncture, it must be said that the passivity of citizens is equally a hindrance to positive development, just as the looting and mismanagement of our resources by the political actors. Had millions of adults come out to join the peaceful protests, they most likely would have, by their sheer population, made it impossible for hoodlums to hijack the process. Had the police, too, strategically positioned themselves in front of our very important assets one week before August 1st when the protests began, maybe the story would have been different.
We must, as a matter of urgency, part ways with the colonial legacy of seeing peaceful protesters as enemies of the government. Our insincere pursuit of democracy will continue to put us on a permanent track of convoluted crises if our leopard does not change its skin. It is in this context that I consider the president’s broadcast as a little too late and also inappropriate. He ought to have made the broadcast three or four days before August 1st; while the security forces ought to have been fully armed and should have taken positions days before the protests began in front of our vital assets as a preventive measure to make it impossible for hoodlums to invade or burn those assets.
Let our leaders understand that, by suppressing citizenship activism, which must manifest in a democracy in the form of peaceful protests, they are inhibiting the emergence of viable democratic governance. As long as we keep having high-level illiteracy in the midst of equally high-level corruption and mismanagement, along with embarrassingly high-level of poverty and endless neglect of out-of-school children and the so-called miscreants and Almajiris, we will not get out of the ugly cycle of poverty, of endless protests and agitations and of the endless killings on both sides of the divide. We will permanently keep heaping disgrace and shame on ourselves in the eyes of the international community.
It is not too late for President Tinubu to re-orientate the people working with him and for himself as well to rebuild his own mindset as he summons the courage to return to the fold of campaigners for true federalism and the restructuring of the polity. Let there be strict adherence to the rule of law and respect for fundamental human rights of all citizens, irrespective of background, religion, ethnicity or status. Let him reinvigorate the anti-corruption campaign. He must subscribe to the ethos of responsive governance that sees the people as partners in progress, not abject subjects to be ruled and intimidated from time to time.
One way of showing a commitment to return to his original base or camp of the progressives is for President Tinubu to take a second look at the demands of the #ENDBADGOVERNANCE protesters, especially their economic agenda, and see how some of those demands can be met with a view to doing something concrete immediately to reduce youth unemployment, high cost of living, and high cost of transportation. He must also commit to waging a more vigorous battle against insecurity. Working together, we shall achieve peace and justice in our country”.
Well said, comrade! But someone volunteered that President Tinubu is still too engrossed in the fruits, plums and perquisites of office – sacking this, hiring that – to have any inclination yet for anything restructuring or true federalism! Another said if all the #ENDBADGOVERNANCE protests achieved was frightening the daylight out of president Tinubu and his cohorts, that it is worth the effort. But I say, if we think we have survived this scare, let’s fear the rage next time!
Former Editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-chief, BOLAWOLE was also the Managing Director/Editor-in-chief of THE WESTERNER newsmagazine. He writes the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday Tribune and TREASURES column in New Telegraph newspaper on Wednesdays. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.