This time, surviving in Nigeria is pretty hard. No need to beat about the bush; hunger has ravaged the land like a bubonic plague. Historically, survival in Nigeria has never been this tough in the life of the country’s citizens. Not even in the late 1960s’ and early 1970s’ era of civil war was the suffering pervasive as experienced across the length and breadth of the nation as the present. This is happening amidst insecurity that ravages every nook and cranny of the nation.
However, what is currently happening now is not far from a civil war across the country, waged by the ruling elites against the common people. It combines psychological warfare and the ballistic missiles of physical incapacitation of the people economically. Or how else can it be described, if not war against humanity, when you disrobe a man of the dignity and honour of being able to feed and cater for his family through deliberate policies of pauperisation? What is left of the manhood and womanhood when the haves turned have-nots overnight through cruel policies of government? When givers become beggarsnot by self-inflicted misfortune but by the actions and inactions of those looked up to for proper management of the nation’s affairs, it is as good as being sentenced to public execution.
One could not have thought that a president would emerge to inflict worse situations on Nigerians after unpleasant experiences under former President Buhari. The reality now stares everybody in the face. The situation has compelled ordinary citizens, out of cries and pain to coin phrases of hunger from the president’s campaign slogan,emilokan (‘my turn’). Emilokan is now known as ebilokan and enikanlomo. (Meaning that ‘my turn’ has been coined into ‘hungertime’, and ‘he who wears the shoe knows where it pinches.’)
I will illustrate this better with three recent incidents that moved me to tears for this nation this year. They are stories that capture the true mood of the nation today. I will narrate them inter alia before going into the main object of this piece.
The first incident was the death of my niece this year. I called her ‘Aunty’ as a mark of respect for the age difference between us both. She was a business-oriented woman and fanatically hardworking. Apart from other businesses that involved buying and selling, she also engaged in renting out building equipment to builders.
She was doing well in her respect until two misfortunes befell her businesses. The first one was Buhari’s catastrophic era that saw the collapse of several indigenous businesses. Her businesses began to enjoy low patronage as much as a large number of people were disempowered financially. Then came the second tragedy, this Tinubu’s era of economic insanity that finally collapsed her businesses with fiscal and economic policy flip-flop inflicting most of her customers with the loss of financial capacity. Even her debtors embarked on all sorts of excuses to evade paying her their debts. Thinking selling food would make a difference, she took a loan to diversify into cooking and restaurant running, which also failed due to the increasing cost of foodstuffs and lack of patronage. This experience forced my niece into depression, and she subsequently died of a heart attack.
The second incident was the loss of a comrade. He died in his prime, leaving behind his wife and four children. Com. Moshood Bello, popularly known as Igbin (the deep sound of a drum), was not only a rights activist but a qualified statistician who ended up in the judicial sector as a clerk. He succumbed to an ailment that he had managed long enough with his meagre salary. Unfortunately, when his take-home pay could no longer feed his family, let alone treat his ailment, he fell ill and ultimately gave up the ghost at a hospital this year.
While alive, he shared the story of his health with me on some occasions. I advised him to call on well-meaning people to come to his aid but knowing the nature of humans, he was cautious of whom to share his ordeal. He was afraid of becoming the subject of ridicule over his health or his health turned into a moneymaking venture for private pockets. Thus, he resorted to managing his health within his limited salary and the little support his few confidential associates could offer. And he was doing well with it until this Emilokan government arrived with T-pain.
Many others, however, have even chosen the path of suicide. In the current Tinubu regime, the rate of suicides has risen far and aboveprevious historical experiences. And it is no exaggeration to say many more may be attempting suicide now with the unending government efforts at making life worse for the people.
The third experience is about the underage who were ignominiously arraigned recently before the Federal High Court in Abuja for protesting against the suffering that people are undergoing. Before they were purportedly released, a CNN report, on November 3, 2024, headlined that “29 Children may be sentenced to death for protesting against the cost-of-living crisis in Nigeria.” In other words, these 29 children would have faced the death penalty for protesting peacefully against the ongoing suffering in Nigeria. According to this report, the children had stayed in detention for about 90 days before being taken to court and the reason four of them collapsed in court before they could enter a plea.
Some people may tend to ask, was it Tinubu that killed Moshood? My answer is Yes, just like the case of my cousin. Because the policies of Tinubu’s government have reduced the economic power of the citizens which in turn has devalued their essence of living. It is only a blind and deaf government that would not know or see that things are fast collapsing around it. Since the president’s misadventures of tinkering with the fuel pump prices through his phoney removal of subsidies, the worse calamities have struck the country. And despite all hues and cries, our president’s main concern seems to have revolved around punishing Nigerians for whatever sins he perceived them to have committed.
Nevertheless, many citizens are now wondering, what are even our sins as a people to deserve bad leaders in this country? And how did we descend so low in the choice of leaders in this nation?
In 2022, way back before the presidential election, a lawyer whose intelligence and opinion I respected, once threw a bombshell at a forum organised to celebrate the birthday of a comrade. While he was giving his speech, he said: “A Nigerian complaining is a robber in waiting.” My response was a shock. I was not expecting such a statement from any member of that gathering. It was a gathering of activists, mostly of the younger generation. Though the import of this statement seemed lost on many present at the gathering, I felt such a statement was potent enough to demoralise some willing and genuine people who would have the desire to fight for positive change in the country. I went to his office later to take him up on it. More so, it was when Buhari was setting Nigeria on fire with his sadistic economic policies. We never even knew then that Nigeria was coming to face a more bohemian situation.
However, the lawyer made this statement against the backdrop of a concern that it was becoming difficult to distinguish genuine activists from politicians these days. Most professed activists have become ‘cashtivists’ and are often in cahoots with politicians to delude people. Sincerely speaking, there are many activists in Nigeria today whose main reason for activism is their stomach and not the noble desire to affect positive changes in their society. When challenged on their wrongdoings, their response usually is: “It’s for survival.” Therefore, to an extent, the lawyer was correct, but I believed that in such a forum there could be some genuine activists that the statement could discourage and damage for life.
To be frank, the effect of that statement jolted me to look beyond our leaders in assessing the country’s problem. The pattern of criticism usually is that we rush to crucify them without evaluating our roles in the blame. Truly, despite the criticisms and cursing of our past presidents and governments each time the opportunity offers itself for another set of people to power, they become more woeful in performance than those whom they succeed. Thus, in assessing the current situation of the country, I have chosen to depart from the traditional vilification of the government or the person of the president. Therefore, I have been reassessing our political situation, asking questions about why we have been moving from one bad government to another successively.
Sincerely, no question that is not worth asking about our unfortunate trajectory as a nation. Hence, have we asked ourselves the salient question of our role(s) played in the whole inglorious affairs? Should we continue to blame our leaders for the abject situation we have found ourselves as a nation? Are they always wrong? The inefficiency or dastardly acts of our leaders, could they be our genuine reflections as a people? Could it be that it is in our character to have bad leaders? Why do we sing praise our leaders into power and turn to crucify them when they have settled into the saddle? In essence, are we sure we are not our own worst enemies?
But if I may ask, how bad is our current president? There is no straightforward answer to this and other questions I have raised in this piece. But it appears to me as if the president of a country is as good or bad as the people he leads. As I mentioned earlier, this is not about flagellating President Bola Tinubu for his penchant for ‘sins’, but to talk about the ‘righteous’, who have brought a ‘sinner’ to power and turned out to shed tears thereafter. I will, however, answer those questions I have raised by painting some scenarios as follows.
It is commendable to see some youths take to the streets in a pocket of peaceful protests against the prevailing pains the government of Bola Tinubu has foisted on the people. At least, all of us cannot sleep and face same direction. And there is the need to genuinely end bad governance in Nigeria.
The aftermath of the protests has, however, been more of an eye-opener than the protests themselves. It has betrayed the true colour of the government we are dealing with as gaolers who see Nigerians as deadly criminals who must be put in chains all the time in order to restrain them from reacting against their terrible conditions, no matter what. If not, why should non-violent protesters be killed or even charged with treasonable felonies? It is a question that will keep echoing in living memories for years to come.
One of the interesting features that came out of the protests was the tacit reaction of Com. Debo Adeniran, the President of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), in the Daily Trust of October 1, 2024. In the tabloid headlined, “Tinubu Means Well For Nigeria – CDHR”, the president of CDHR was quoted to have reacted to the Independence Day broadcast of Tinubu by saying: “We have heard his (Tinubu) message of hope again. We know the President means well for the country and the people of Nigeria. . .”
Though Com. Debo’s reaction was reported while many who protested against the government the same day were being hunted down for arrest, I still saluted his courage. At least, we have, for the first time, a leader of a civil society coming out to defend his weird conviction or opinion of a government. Unlike many others, he is not playing hide-and-seek with his position. He was not paying lip service to a pretenceto activism. He took the bull by the horns and said it as he felt it. As a member of CDHR, I know that CDHR, in its original intention and standing, will never support a government or its policy that throws a mass of people into the Atlantic Ocean of poverty. But what it takes to be a leader is to be able to defend your belief even if you are wrong, irrespective of whose ox is gored.
Meanwhile, amongst the champions of most of these protests against “Bad Governance” were some civil societies. There lies the crux of the matter.
When the president assumed office, some leaders of the civil societies immediately went to Aso Rock to pay homage to him. And some of them did not consult with or report back to the civil societies whom they represented what they discussed in their meeting with him and what his responses were. But to the discernible minds, the visit suggested an assurance that they would rally people or members in his support for a successful term.
Not long after he won the election, one civil society lady chieftain began mobilising support for the president from other civil societies for his successful term. To her, it is now their turn to benefit from the national cake.
This patronising show, to me, is a general perception that Tinubu owes them because civil societies made him. And this is the time to claim from him more entitlements, instead of fighting him. There is nothing bad in claiming entitlement from the commonwealth of the nation if it is to benefit the mass of the people. As citizens, we all areshareholders of the national cake.
This takes me to the emergence of Tinubu as a political pivot of a centripetal force, invincible enough to crush. I have heard different arguments and counterarguments about the making of Tinubu. Some have confessed they are the direct benefactors of Tinubu. And that instead of him being their godfather, it is the other way around. There have been some opposing views against this position. Notwithstanding, what those who have held the views of being the ‘makers’ of Tinubu have not added to their claim is that they came from the background of civil societies.
Yes, civil societies made Tinubu. They bred the Godfather himself. And they promoted the kingmaker to become a king himself. This is my assertion. But the president himself admitted this much in his democracy day speech that he was a major beneficiary of the pro-democracy struggle. In his speech to seek the release of the detainees of EndSars’ protests, Senator Shehu Sanni also backed up the president’s claim by referencing him as a former sponsor of civil societies’ protests.
This president’s relationship with civil societies dates back to when he was a senator in the Third Republic under a military system – a kind of diarchy system then. That was when he began to establish interactions with some student leaders.
When I meant civil societies, I was not excluding NADECO or Afenifere. Because in the heyday of fighting for the retrieval of the June 12 mandate of MKO Abiola, you could hardly distinguish these bodies from civil societies or human rights associations generally. All worked hand in glove.
After he became a governor, the core civil societies highjacked him from the NADECO or Afenifere group. As a governor, not many civil or human rights organisations that did not benefit from hissponsorship either directly or through proxy. He rallied many of them to his side through programmes or protest sponsorship. He even picked some of their members for appointments in his cabinets. After office, he never relented in sponsoring them through their programmes or for protests. In short, he penetrated every fabric of civil societies in Nigeria. Though there were few activists in the civil societies he could not penetrate then, the most prominent and major character amongst them was Chief Gani Fawehinmi. And when Gani began to tackle Tinubu for some of his suspicious actions, those he used to wrestle him (Gani) down were the leaders of civil societies. In a way, at his assumption of office as the president, he had become the don of Nigeria’s civil societies.
Because he had learnt to heart their tactics and strategies, he developed his countermeasures against protests. One of such he had used well enough to counter the protests against the tollgate built at Leki before the EndSars’ eruptions was engineering thugs to join a peaceful protest by pretending to be genuine participants and turn it to violence for security operatives to disrupt it. Sometimes, the thugs themselves would chase after the genuine protesters with machetesand guns.
Should we still be wondering why our president has no regard for protest or civil societies any longer? Should we also be wondering why the president has turned deaf ears to the cries, groaning and gnashing of teeth of the people? Should we continue in our dreamland that he may turn into a born-again messiah one day? Have we seen at all why the country will remain in its sorry state?
The whole essence, as an addendum, is that there are many interests today also hiding under the banner of activism to condemn Tinubu, not for the love of Nigeria but for losing out in the schemes of power or just waiting in the wing to take their turn tomorrow. This one ironyhas made the struggle for good governance a protracted one and a dangerous avenue for genuine activists.
However, riding a tiger arms the rider, the sweetness of the bloody power of devouring, but the day that hunger smacks out the brain of the tiger and there is no one else in sight to devour, the rider may end up in its belly. We must not forget that a sword-killer would never allow a sword to be swung in his presence, let alone over his head. This is the reason that one of the most heinous crimes one can commit in Nigeria today is protesting against bad governance.
Who will fight the don of civil societies now and win? This has been my major worry.
Johnson Amusan is a legal practitioner and a socio-political analyst.
kejij2006@gmail.com
