Government caught in the #EndSARS trap

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Despite its glaring failure to addressing identified lapses in administering the country and its components, the government still finds it convenient and necessary to vilify the organizers of the recent protest against police brutality, extortion anchored on bad governance and inchoate revolution that is on suspension pending the reformation of the police and fulfilment of other demands.

From what oozes out of the government towards organizers of the protest, the narrative is misleading and does not capture the reality of the protest.

As an activist, there was the organized EndSARS protest which erupted like a volcano and as usual with our system it caught the government unaware. It was a budding revolution with youthful zest and by far the most, well-organized peaceful protest ever in Nigeria in recent history with clear and defined demands and objectives.

Then arrived agents provocateur: hoodlums, hooligans, touts under the suspected protection of security agents that are the same classless citizens that politicians use to dominate the political scene. The human rigging machines used for political ends. They were not the usually known street urchins but the regular thugs properly armed who were dropped off from tinted SUVs in the full glare of security agents. They were let loose to cause confusion and scuttle the peaceful protest that was timely and desirable for better Nigeria. They succeeded in part to jerk the protest to violence and gave the government reason to come with an iron fist and unleashed mayhem on the genuine protesters staining our national flag with the innocent blood of well-organized protesters.

Last emerged another group, the dispossessed, deprived and hungry Nigerians who spontaneously identified stores and warehouses where food items and palliatives meant to cushion the effect of Covid-19 lockdown were stored. They looted whatever their hands could find, noodles, rice, milk etc. they carted away those items with a sense of entitlement and provocation of the selfishness of those greedy leaders that hoarded the items for only God knows why.

The arsonists and anarchists who attacked correctional centres and destroyed government and private properties were not part of the peaceful protest. They were hired political foot soldiers of the ruling class employed for a political bargain. Their devilish action was used by the government to seize the moment to blackmail conveners of the peaceful protest. The panic responses from states and federal governments who set up judicial panels all over the places to investigate the activities of the notorious ogre of the Nigeria Police Force, SARS has no hope of any success, different from what we had in the past. It is just a smokescreen and well-rehearsed Nollywood drama.

Those in leadership cannot claim ignorance of how the police operate in Nigeria. They cannot claim ignorance of police brutality and extortion. They cannot claim ignorance of how police torture suspects in custody. They cannot claim how the Nigeria Police concoct falsehood against innocent suspects. They cannot claim, not to be aware of the fact that the Nigeria Police has never been a friendly security organ of government to anyone. They can neither claim to be ignorant of the Nigeria Police being Plc. Nigeria Police Force can only be disbanded as the solution but no reformation can ever change that rotten organization that has commercialized and corrupted its core values.

Beyond the demand for the scrapping of SARS, the #EndSARS protest is rather a movement for the restoration of law and order and campaign for good governance and an end to impunity. The gladiators of the protest have since gone underground due to the repressive response of the government identifying the leaders and conveners and targeting their investments and accounts. The counter-revolutionary response will certainly boomerang and if the government allows those creative youths to go underground. We should tread carefully to avoid a spontaneous demonstration that may give a fatal blow to our corporate existence which the government appears not to be aware of and which is highly likely in the circumstances of the lopsided clannish federation that we operate.

Let the government make no mistake about the gravity of provocation and frustration in the minds of the idling youths and the impoverished majority. The older generations are just pretending to be comfortable and tolerating the situation. They are as much disillusioned as the idling youths. The only difference is the disadvantage of age and the fact that some still manage to eke a legitimate living which they are desperate to protect the source. The patterns of the aborted protest showed that the people appear to have identified their oppressors to be, people in strategic leadership positions and their minions, without sparing the traditional institution. No threat or intimidation can stop a frustrated, pauperized and wretched people who have nothing to lose in any revolution but the chain of servitude.

The protest has set in motion consciousness of a budding revolution and going to arrest people for trial for allegedly looting warehouses and stores filled with donated food and other essentials while they go hungry is a total declaration of war and the next phase of it may well spell catastrophe for the entire country and therefore should be avoided earnest with decorum.

Nothing in human life is cast in stone and iron as our leaders are toying with our corporate entity through regional and ethno-religious sentiments. The government should not consider it victory that they have reined in the youths; it amounts to a case of an aggravated mental illusion to claim victory. The government may choose to go after the street mobs to collect their “loots” but it has to be careful the way it goes about it because the scale has gone off the faces of the ordinary citizen.

The government wants to gag the press and regulate the very social media it used to access power in 2015 thinking that Nigeria can be run like China while they beam falsehood and propaganda to the world. This is the biggest joke of the century, hypocrisy at its best and opportunism of the first order because this was the same government while in opposition employed the combination of the conventional press and social media using same youths to access power.

As one of those accredited journalists covering the 2015 presidential campaigns, I can vividly recall some of our private discussions while in the All Progressives Congress Abuja situation room with Babachir David Lawal, Lai Muhammed, Bukola Saraki, Rochas Anayo Okorocha, Dakuku Peterside etc on the vital role of the media in the election and stability of the polity.

Connecting the dots on the #EndSARS project, there were three distinct sub-groups of the main group, the proletariat and the hoi polloi. At the tip of the project was the #EndSARS protesters who were largely peaceful, well organized and did not constitute the vandals, looters and anarchists. They presented legitimate demands and every fair-minded person believes in their cause. At the other end of the project were the agents provocateur, the hoodlums, hooligans, touts who the suspected state officials used to disrupt the lawful and peaceful protest. They were responsible for jailbreaks, destruction of police facilities and other anti-social activities to give legitimacy for government to go in resulting in the extra-judicial killing of the lawful protesters and thereby straining the national flag. At the base was the street mobs who were hungry and frustrated citizens that lacked food on the table; they were legions and they went for the donated palliatives that rightly belonged to them but greedily hoarded by the shylock leaders.

The leadership of our security agencies got it wrong to use lethal force to disperse the lawful protest. Those that deserved the lethal force are those insurgents in Sambisa, the bandits in Northwest, armed robbers everywhere, kidnappers everywhere, pen robbers in government offices and the treasury looters in political positions not the ordinary citizens who demanded for good governance and an end to impunity. This is the greatest mistake the government is making by picking individuals and roping them in for trial just for looting what was donated to them by philanthropists but hoarded by their leaders in power for a sinister move.

If the truth must be told, why were foods and other donated items meant to cushion the effects of Covid-19 lockdown hoarded by some state governors while the people were forced to sleep on an empty stomach? In this regard, I doff my hat to Bauchi State Governor, Sen. Bala Muhammed for his quick response to the protesters. He ordered the immediate opening of the stores and warehouses where the palliatives were stored for their inspection if there was anything hoarded not distributed. True to his statement as nothing was found in the stores and the warehouses not evenly distributed. He had his cool and slept soundly with praises from his people. That is leadership by example. What stopped his colleagues in other states from doing same much earlier? Pallia-thieves!

Muhammad is a commentator on national issues

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