An Arab Spring For Nigeria?
By Erasmus Ikhide
COUNT down to August 1st to 10th scheduled protests tagged #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria suddenly gained the attention of President Bola Amhed Tinubu’s rundown and broken government that has been listening only to itself and ethic champions like Bayo Onanuga over the last one year plus. But there’s desolate tragic underpinning after publicly denying through his Minister of Information and National Orientation that the government is using tyrannical and strongarm tactics to hold down the protests against section 40 of the Nigerian 1999 Constitution, as amended.
Section 40 states: “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.” Now, it has come to limelight that the government has issued violent crackdown orders to the security architecture to quell the looming anti-hunger protests that has gained wider acceptance across all strata of the society. Already, there are casualties of this order by the Nigerian government being carried out by the Nigerian Military, the Nigeria Police and the Nigeria’s Secret Service, also known as Department of State Services (DSS) or State Security Service (SSS). The United Bank of Africa’s account number of Take It Back (TIB), one of the organizations that promoted #EndSARS protests, which also indicated interest in the anti-hunger looming protests has been frozen on the order of the DSS/SSS.
Howard Zinn, an American historian, playwright, and social activist eternal advocacy against illegitimacy can’t be truer. “It is criminal to be law-abiding in an illegitimate government.” The quote highlights the complex relationship between obedience to the law and the legitimacy of the government or system in power. It suggests that in a country or system perceived as illegitimate or unjust, following the law may not necessarily be the most moral or ethical choice. Instead, it may be seen as complicity or acceptance of an unjust status quo, particularly when Tinubu’s government – like a criminal who has been trying to purchase legitimacy over lack of genuine popular mandate – was elected in a farcical election.
The organizers of the protest can now understand that all Tinubu said about allowing the protests to hold, as a grandmaster of protestation, is a risible farce. It’s only an untrustworthy and illegitimate leader that would say one thing publicly and secretly use the Nigerian secret police to clandestinely attack the protesters against the Nigerian Constitution. It’s an obvious call for the protesters to brace up for war. The behaviour of the Nigerian secret police and the Presidency point to one thing: The Nigerian government’s only goal is to stop the protests. Organizers now have their work cut out for them. The goal of the protesters now appears to be bringing down Tinubu’s ramshackled government to its knees.
Nigeria’s uprising with its echoes from the Arab Spring and Kenyans’ present demands for responsible government illustrates clearly how corruption, cronyism, and on-your-face gross impunity has crowded Tinubu’s increasingly authoritarian regime. Since taking power last year, President Tinubu has failed woefully to either speak the right language to heal the economy or deliver on promises of job creation, taming security crises or fixing the comatose refineries. The solutions to mass youth population demonstrations are never locked under the jackboot of pocket tyrants. Rather, they’re helmed in absorbing millions of unemployed and underemployed young people into the labour market.
At the moment, more than one-twelfth of University graduates remain unemployed within 10 to 20 years after graduation. More worrisome is the report that roughly 90% of Nigerian youth – ten times the global average – are not in education, employment, or training. Tragically, private-sector employment is completely stagnant since all the notable multinationals have all exited the country for obvious reasons, namely: economic instability, terrorism, infrastructural collapse, official corruption and bureaucratic bottleneck, policy inconsistency, high operating costs, limited skilled workforce, over dependence on oil exports, competition from other African markets, as well as global economic trends.
Under President Tinubu’s antediluvian regime, state institutions, including the judiciary, have been weakened. The government’s capacity for implementing critical reforms has been reduced, and the economy has become increasingly fragile. The rising cost of living and rampant corruption in public service has quadrupled, and his government’s insistence on what’s wrong has ignited the social-wide discontent against his administration.
The belief in some quarters is that, the President, by signposting the nation’s security architecture for brutal repression against would be protesters, may have exhausted its options to remain in power. Will the looming protests become a critical turning point for Nigeria? Is the Arab Spring coming to berth in Nigeria? Time only, shall tell!
Erasmus Ikhide contributed this piece via: ikhideluckyerasmus@gmail.com
