It was reported that when Chief Obafemi Awolowo, first Premier of Western Nigeria, was going to give up on Nigeria’s politics in the 1980s, he projected that the masses of Nigeria, whom the elite refuse to educate, train, and provide jobs for, would fight for themselves when the time comes.
The violence that is gradually creeping all over Nigeria is probably the fulfilment of that grim prophecy. And with the recent kidnapping of some Christian clerics at Ogbere, near Ijebu Ode, in Ogun State, the proverbial chicken is coming home to roost.
As the menace of violence is getting close to Lagos, the hub of Nigeria’s economy, it looks like the train of terror is coming full circle. The South-West, hitherto thought to be safe from the violence, is almost becoming as vulnerable as Nigeria’s North-East corridor.
The aphorism that the devil finds work for the idle hands plays out eloquently in the unemployed Nigerian youths who fetch up as Boko Haram insurgents, Niger Delta militants, kidnappers, thugs, assassins, bandits, cultists, and armed robbers, and now. And, after a long lull, the civil society protesters are back on the streets.
It’s rather strange that the Federal Government is surprised that the facilitators of the #RevolutionNow protest that commenced on Monday, August 5, 2019, had a turnout at all, despite the arrest of its convener, Omoyele Sowore, publisher of SaharaReporters, the intrepid online newspaper.
After Sowore’s arrest on August 3, 2019, Olusegun Obe, National Publicity Secretary of The Third Force of Nigeria, argued that “It is illegal to criminalise or victimise any citizen of Nigeria for openly expressing contrary stance against government’s policies and programmes.”
In reminding the people who their real enemies are, French political philosopher, Voltaire, had said: “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise.” In other words, whoever will not allow you to express your dissent is the boss of your life.
Sowore, Obe, and The Third Force, are possibly seeking refuge in Section 38(1) of Nigeria’s constitution, which provides that, “Every person shall be entitled to freedom of thought, (and) conscience.”
This allows them to call on willing Nigerians to exercise their rights to Section 40 of the constitution, which provides that “Every person shall be entitled to assemble freely, and associate with other persons, and in particular, he may form or belong to any political party, trade union, or any other association for the protection of his interests.”
The Nigeria Police made a rather ominous pronouncement that the protest march of The Third Force was “treasonable felony,” which attracts a maximum of life imprisonment. Mercifully, they are not talking about treason, which carries the death penalty. But all that is politics.
Having digressed into the realm of politics, it is fit to further digress, to suggest that no purpose will be served by keeping Sowore in detention, or attempt to prevent him and his comrades from exercising a right that even the Nigerian military allowed to be included in the constitution they prepared for the democracy they bequeathed to the “bloody civilian” Nigerians.
The Department of State Services should remember that sometime in 2014, Presidential Candidate Muhammadu Buhari and others marched against insecurity in Nigeria, and they were not arrested. Maybe, the DSS just doesn’t like the words, “Revolution,” and “Regime change.”
A list of demands sought by the protesters, which were summarised into three capsules by civil rights activist Inibehe Effiong, are: “End anti-people economic policies; End special privileges of the ruling class; and, Return political power to the working people.”
Democratisation of violence
7th August 2019
By Lekan Sote
Lekan Sote
It was reported that when Chief Obafemi Awolowo, first Premier of Western Nigeria, was going to give up on Nigeria’s politics in the 1980s, he projected that the masses of Nigeria, whom the elite refuse to educate, train, and provide jobs for, would fight for themselves when the time comes.
The violence that is gradually creeping all over Nigeria is probably the fulfilment of that grim prophecy. And with the recent kidnapping of some Christian clerics at Ogbere, near Ijebu Ode, in Ogun State, the proverbial chicken is coming home to roost.
As the menace of violence is getting close to Lagos, the hub of Nigeria’s economy, it looks like the train of terror is coming full circle. The South-West, hitherto thought to be safe from the violence, is almost becoming as vulnerable as Nigeria’s North-East corridor.
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My Daughter Was Preparing For Her Masters In UK Before Train Crash – Father Of Corps Member| Punch
The aphorism that the devil finds work for the idle hands plays out eloquently in the unemployed Nigerian youths who fetch up as Boko Haram insurgents, Niger Delta militants, kidnappers, thugs, assassins, bandits, cultists, and armed robbers, and now. And, after a long lull, the civil society protesters are back on the streets.
It’s rather strange that the Federal Government is surprised that the facilitators of the #RevolutionNow protest that commenced on Monday, August 5, 2019, had a turnout at all, despite the arrest of its convener, Omoyele Sowore, publisher of SaharaReporters, the intrepid online newspaper.
After Sowore’s arrest on August 3, 2019, Olusegun Obe, National Publicity Secretary of The Third Force of Nigeria, argued that “It is illegal to criminalise or victimise any citizen of Nigeria for openly expressing contrary stance against government’s policies and programmes.”
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In reminding the people who their real enemies are, French political philosopher, Voltaire, had said: “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise.” In other words, whoever will not allow you to express your dissent is the boss of your life.
Sowore, Obe, and The Third Force, are possibly seeking refuge in Section 38(1) of Nigeria’s constitution, which provides that, “Every person shall be entitled to freedom of thought, (and) conscience.”
This allows them to call on willing Nigerians to exercise their rights to Section 40 of the constitution, which provides that “Every person shall be entitled to assemble freely, and associate with other persons, and in particular, he may form or belong to any political party, trade union, or any other association for the protection of his interests.”
The Nigeria Police made a rather ominous pronouncement that the protest march of The Third Force was “treasonable felony,” which attracts a maximum of life imprisonment. Mercifully, they are not talking about treason, which carries the death penalty. But all that is politics.
Having digressed into the realm of politics, it is fit to further digress, to suggest that no purpose will be served by keeping Sowore in detention, or attempt to prevent him and his comrades from exercising a right that even the Nigerian military allowed to be included in the constitution they prepared for the democracy they bequeathed to the “bloody civilian” Nigerians.
The Department of State Services should remember that sometime in 2014, Presidential Candidate Muhammadu Buhari and others marched against insecurity in Nigeria, and they were not arrested. Maybe, the DSS just doesn’t like the words, “Revolution,” and “Regime change.”
A list of demands sought by the protesters, which were summarised into three capsules by civil rights activist Inibehe Effiong, are: “End anti-people economic policies; End special privileges of the ruling class; and, Return political power to the working people.”
If you break it further down, as the protest organisers have done, it does look like a call for socialism, whose former diehard and ardent ideologues or protagonists, recognise and agree has pretty much expired.
Some of the specifics, which incidentally address the existential issues of every Nigerian, are: Ending subsidies, stabilising the naira, compelling thieving public officers to return their loot, and withdrawing police and military guards of individuals, except the President and governors.
Some other demands are: Not appointing politicians still being interrogated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission as federal ministers-designate, socialisation of all lands, and writing a new constitution for Nigeria.
Those who argue that Sowore, having been a presidential candidate, should not be organising a street protest, quite forget that politics is about contesting the political space, and continuously offering alternatives to the electorate.
After the military vacated the political space in 1999, the first major agitations were from the Niger Delta militants, who kidnapped expatriates, first, to protest environmental degradation, and, later, to extract ransoms as atonement for the “sins” of the International Oil Companies.
Because it became a profitable venture, others, with less than noble intentions, began to kidnap high networth individuals, or their relatives, for ransom. Individuals, like “Evans,” who operated almost solely in Lagos, became millionaires from the nefarious “trade.”
While kidnapping was spreading, the Boko Haram insurgents crept into relevance, with serial bombings of markets, worship centres, and government facilities in the Federal Capital Territory, as well as palaces of prominent traditional rulers in the North-West Nigeria.
They also made occasional sorties into the North-Central zone, before they were constricted by the military to Northeast Nigeria, their home base. But the fear, or mention, of Boko Haram in any part of Nigeria had become the beginning of wisdom for many Nigerians.
The more recent expression of violence came with the wave of violence that foreign Fulani herdsmen visit on farmers and farming communities in North-Central, South-East, South-South, and South-West Nigeria.
The grim translation is that every part of Nigeria, including the relatively affluent and hitherto more peaceful South-West, is now experiencing the wave of violence. The South-West is particularly irked by the recent killing of Funke Olakunri, daughter of Pa Reuben Fasoranti, Leader of the Afenifere, the Yoruba socio-political group.
Some have suggested that the offer of amnesty to Niger Delta militants by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, the death of the founder of the Boko Haram sect in police custody, Muhammed Yusuf, and the failure of immediate past President Goodluck Jonathan to curtail the violence of the Boko Haram insurgents, emboldened others to resort to violence to settle their political and existentialist scores.
Others, more specific and direct in their thinking, actually indict President Muhammadu Buhari, whom they accuse of being lackadaisical, indulgent and selective, with regard to sanctions against those who inflict pain and sorrow on Nigerians.
They accuse the President of acting in the breach of Section 14 of Nigeria’s constitution, which provides that security (and welfare) of the people of Nigeria is the major responsibility of government. Unfortunately, the President has not done much to dispel this notion.
Yet, others swear that the economic doldrums into which Nigerians have got into is a major cause of the insecurity in Nigeria. The irony, however, is that the insecurity will lead to more poverty, which will, in turn, lead to more insecurity.
And this vicious cycle may go on ad infinitum, if the government does not decisively end the general insecurity. The only way to achieve that is to evolve concrete and realistic policies to right the economic wrongs within the polity.
Whereas the good of Nigeria is restricted to the elite, everyone, it seems, will share in its misery.
