By Sunny Awhefeada
Nigerians were ushered into 2012 with the OCCUPY NIGERIA protests which held the nation down for over ten days. The protests were nationwide and its raison d’ tre was to force the then President Goodluck Jonathan to institute economic reforms that will make life better for the people. At the core of that protest was the thorny issue of fuel subsidy removal. The government of the day held many town hall meetings where it canvassed the view that fuel subsidy was bleeding the country and that it was a drain pipe that was not only accentuating corruption, but that Nigeria would soon be anemic and comatose. The argument made by government was brilliant and backed by verifiable facts. The organizers of the protest would not hear of it. They mobilized men and materials in billions of naira and staged a well-coordinated civil disobedience that eventually de-marketed the Goodluck Jonathan administration. That incident took place on the heels of the Arab Spring which led to socio-political tremor in North Africa. The reality of the North African experience was enough for President Jonathan to deploy state power and resources to subvert the OCCUPY NIGERIA protests, but he never did. He sought civil engagement manifesting in dialogue, eventual reversal of subsidy removal and the introduction of new economic policies that cushioned the economic problems of that era.
Twelve years later, the leaders of the OCCUPY NIGERIA protests, who funded it and led youths to disrupt the workings of the nation for more than ten days, have emerged to be the lords of the Nigerian manor. Three years after the OCCUPY NIGERIA protests, there was a regime change via the 2015 presidential election. The victors who emerged were the leaders of the protest three years earlier. The new leaders of government were to rule and ruin the country for the next eight years imposing the harshest of economic policies on the helpless citizens to the extent that Nigeria became the poverty capital of the world. The country was also diagnosed to be suffering from multi-dimensional poverty. Sometime in October 2020, the youths stormed the streets in protest against police brutality in what has become known as the ENDSARS PROTESTS. The government led by those who championed the OCCUPY NIGERIA protest of 2012, that were never molested, unleashed the armed forces on youths who held the nation’s flag to decry dehumanization and mauled them in their numbers. At the end of the ENDSARS PROTESTS, the scenario was that of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’ s “sorrow, tears and blood”.
Between 2015 and now, Nigeria has had to endure the worst of economic climate and insensitive governance. The incumbent President Bola Tinubu decreed untold hardship by the flippant if not flagrant display of insensitivity by announcing the removal of subsidy while delivering his inauguration address. The turmoil that presently afflicts Nigeria and buffets her citizens is a consequence of that ill-advised pronouncement. Between former President Mohammadu Buhari and the incumbent President Bola Tinubu, Nigerians have been reduced to living dead on all fronts. Yet, these men and their cohorts promised the nation a rebirth and the eradication of the ills they now inflict on us. The motifs that have dominated our lives in the last ten years are corruption, economic hardship and insecurity. Between Buhari and Tinubu have been promises to eradicate these ills. It was on the heels of these promises that Nigerians saw President Jonathan in bad light and voted him out in 2015. The major beneficiaries of the fall of President Jonathan were Buhari and Tinubu whose regimes turned out to have unleashed scorpions on Nigerians. Looking back, Nigerians now canonize President Jonathan as a great leader who offered Nigerians the kind of leadership that the masqueraders of the 2012 OCCUPY NIGERIA protests have not been able to offer in office. Those who organized and sponsored mass protests against President Jonathan and are now in power have become inveterate obstacles to the greatness and good of Nigeria. They have taken Nigeria down the wrong lane and have become intractable.
As I write this on Thursday morning, Nigeria and Nigerians are stirring in rejection of BAD GOVERNANCE and HUNGER. Different civil society organizations have articulated the plight of the citizens and felt that it was time for intervention that should see a reversal of obnoxious policies that have made life unbearable for the tens of millions of Nigerians stranded in multi-dimensional poverty. The youths who have been worst affected in all ramifications issued a notice to embark on an END BAD GOVERNANCE protest spanning from 1 to 10 August. The government of the day, headed by those who sponsored the 2012 protest and mounted the soapbox to sing, dance and instigate protesters, suddenly became irritated by the thought of an impending civil disobedience geared towards ending bad governance in Nigeria. This coming just after the recent civil disobedience in Kenya has again exposed the unacceptable level of intolerance for dissenting views by those who promised Nigerians “renewed hope”, but now offer hopelessness. The response from government, in words and in action, has been most undemocratic as if the nation was mobilizing for war with a hostile neighbor. The armed forces that have not been able to defeat insurgency in the last ten years are in the wings issuing threats to citizens who have made a legitimate and patriotic choice to END BAD GOVERNANCE by making President Tinubu to reverse the unholy economic policies afflicting the people. The protesters are also calling for a genuine war against corruption and the other more than many ills bedeviling Nigeria.
There has been mounting tension in the last week with the government and the organizers of the protest pitched on opposite sides. Government in its usual display of insensitivity has mobilized everybody and everything against the protest including “black market” court orders. Part of the disastrous insensitivity of government was uttered by no other person than the head of the Nigerian legislature, the President of the National Assembly, Senator Godswill Akpabio who was credited with the following words, “We are not interested in regime change. Let us own this government. Those who want to protest can protest. But let us be there eating.” This is vintage Akpabio whose contributions to national issues and discourse would have been fit subject matters for the poetry of John Dryden. Akpabio’s blustering is reflective of the mindset of those ruining the nation from Abuja and the stark reality is that not until Abuja gets it right Nigeria will remain in the woods. A sensitive legislature would have by now called for Akpabio’s resignation. Such a mind has no place at the table that should negotiate the birth of a new nation. Even his party, the All Progressives Party, a party that is anything but progressive, has not come out to chide Akpabio. Nigeria is burning and those ruling us are playing Akpabio.
The earthshaking mobilization by government against the protest has taken its toll on the latter. The protest was aborted even before it started. A social media post mocked Nigeria thus, “Nigeria is the first country in the world where the government has organized a counter protest to protest a protest that has not been protested”. This is truly ludicrous. Let Akpabio and his ilk continue to eat. He has been eating since 1999. And it has been such a long time and he has forgotten that eating has an expiring date. The bell is tolling. Akpabio and company could have succeeded in muzzling and muffling the protest. But the few Nigerians who defied him and his cohorts and have come out in protest despite state threat will someday have the last laugh. Nigeria will survive!
