Judging by the manner in which the government, the crust of the political elite, and elements within the clerisy and the media have decried and rapidly closed ranks against the #EndBadGovernance nationwide protests being planned for the first week of August, one might be excused for conceiving that the planned demonstrations are an existential threat to the continued existence of Nigeria as a corporate entity.
The Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, had set the unfortunate tone when he accused the organizers of the protest of “insurrection against the administration” and, though he cited no evidence, accused supporters of Peter Obi, the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate in last year’s general election, of “plotting to unseat President Tinubu under the guise of protests.” Mr. Obi is weighing legal action.
Following in the footsteps of Onanuga, countless government officials, state governors, traditional rulers, and highly-placed media personalities have railed against the planned protest and its organizers. While a few did counsel that it is better to dialogue than to take to the streets (there is no evidence so far that the government has asked for a parley), most have chided the organizers of the protest for daring to countenance an idea that, in their view, is guaranteed to expose the country to infiltration by unspecified “foreign mercenaries.” Umar Namadi, Governor of the north-western state of Jigawa, struck a different tone altogether. Describing the country’s economic travails as “a trial from God,” he consequently appealed to the #EndBadGovernance protest planners to “turn to God, repent, [and] seek for forgiveness and divine intervention on the challenges.”
Rather than Mr. Namadi’s call to prayer, it is, understandably enough, the government’s hardline stance that has resonated, and, pending any last-minute change of mind from the organizers (several organizations have already announced their ‘withdrawal,’ but there is no evidence that they were part of the planning in the first place), all indications are that the protests will go on.
No matter what happens next, there is no gainsaying that the Tinubu administration and its highest-ranking officials have mishandled the situation. Instead of playing hardball and needlessly hyperbolizing a mere notice of intention to protest as treason, they could have taken the high road by reaching out to the organizers to discuss their grievances. Furthermore, the administration has set a dangerous precedent by allowing defense spokesperson Major General Edward Buba to threaten violence against the protesters. As many commentators have noted, what is most worrying about the response of the Tinubu government, the aggravating language apart, is that it is poignantly reminiscent of what Nigerians’ experience during the dark era of military rule, when irritable soldiers brutally closed down the slightest indication of dissent.
If the tone of the administration’s response to the planned protests is inexcusable, its arguments against the idea are indefensible.
First, it has effectively criminalized protest by suggesting that organizing a protest is the same thing as inviting violence, an argument (protest equal violence) which, followed to its logical conclusion, would basically mean that no protest of any sort can be allowed since allowing it would mean condoning violence.
Second, and in an unbecoming show of arrogance, it has proceeded to treat any action against the government as action against the state more or less.
Third, it has slandered the #EndBadGovernance organizers as enemies of state, thus equating criticism of the administration with treason against the state. By its own perverse logic, President Tinubu and most of the people in his immediate circle are enemies of state, since they once rose up—and, just to be sure, rightly so—in defiance of an overbearing military state.
Finally, in denouncing the planned protests because they might lead to a breakdown in law and order, the administration seems to have forgotten that rampant insecurity in the country is actually one major explanation for the frustration of the protest organizers. In Tinubu’s first year as president, more than 4,500 Nigerians were killed in various acts of violence, and another 7,000 abducted. Accordingly, from the perspective of the #EndBadGovernance organizers, the breakdown of law and order that the government apparently dreads and wishes to forestall has already happened, and is the horror of the average Nigerian’s everyday lived experience.
Perhaps most worrisome is that President Tinubu has spent more time orchestrating the isolation of the protest organizers and preventing the protests from taking off, than responding to their well-documented grievances. Some commentators have argued that the demands of the organizers are too ambiguous (for instance, “declare a state of emergency on inflation”) and that reaching out to them would be tantamount to giving an undeserved legitimacy to those demands. This argument fundamentally misapprehends the nature of the demands and the rationale behind them. Rather than demands meant to be taken literally—no doubt, some clearly are—they are best seen as expressions of deep and genuine public anger and cynicism, plus a totally understandable frustration at not being heard.
The root of that anger is not far-fetched. For far too long (and here, the Tinubu administration could not be more right in its insistence that it inherited an impossible situation), successive Nigerian governments, military and civilian, have preached one thing and acted another. Holders of public office have asked the people to tighten their belts even as they and close family members have shamelessly gorged on the commonwealth. Nothing that they have seen so far under the Tinubu government gives the average Nigerian any hope that things will be different. On the contrary, they have been anesthetized by a daily torrent of media reports of malfeasance in the uppermost echelons of power.
Against this backdrop, President Tinubu’s task as the country’s leader is to rise above the clamor and ceremony of power, and connect with people at the most primal level.
It is not too much to demand that a president so enamored of democracy that he was willing to mobilize troops to defend it in another country, tolerate simple dissent in his own.
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