#EndSARS Movement: Of Essence and Of Goal Actualization.
I feel moved to pick of my rusty pen from where I dumped it years ago. It’s been quite a while that I had gotten to write anything, so permit me if I have forgotten to how to write like a writer. This piece is just me bleeding my heart through my pen or rather my phone’s keyboard.
The recent happenings in the country needs no emphasis. A dark cloud has been cast over the geographic space that has for many years held the undeserving title of “A Nation” , with a back cover of “One Nigeria” that is representative of nothing in the story within the pages of the book.
The youths of this pseudo nation came with a beamer of hope; Hope that like the Olympic torch, lite up the hopes of even the most skeptical mind that perhaps, just perhaps, Nigeria is auspicious. The torch of hope that casted a beam of light in the non ending tunnel of darkness in which Nigeria as a nation and people had for this long sojourned.
The #EndSARS movement was one that for once since I became self aware, made me proud of being a Nigerian born into my generation. I am one of those that, having looked clinically into the Nigerian diseased nature, had concluded logically, that there is no hope for the Nigeria. Not to long before the #EndSARS protest, I was having a discussion with some people at a restaurant and I told them: “There is no hope for this country, Monday will always be better than Tuesday and Tuesday will be better than Wednesday. The situation will only get worse”. The precinct for the hopelessness I felt in Nigeria is majorly the attitude and mindset of the youths.
But like the stroke of a magic wand, boom!! The EndSars movement, and I found myself jumping in ecstatic excitement at the hope for a New Nigeria. The youths of Nigeria came out and have been coming out en masse to demand for a better Nigeria. The demand for an end to the atrocities of the killer SARS unit of the police gradually yet rapidly metamorphosed into a demand for an albeit better Nigeria. This to me was and is a heart warming occurrence. I am a massive supporter of the protest and I myself have made myself available for protests.
My coming out to join the protest was objective. Written on my placards are wordings meant to give purpose more to the protesters than it is to send a message to the oppressive political elite. My placards bears inscriptions like; “What is SARS? SEVERE ANOMALY and ROT in the SYSTEM, #EndSARS”. “Corruption is Lawmakers bogus pay packages, End SARS in the Legislature”. “The Judiciary is key to a sane society, End SARS in Judiciary”. “Let’s stay Focused in our demands: 1. 5 for 5, 2. Electoral Reform, 3. We bear it in mind and prepare for 2023 political revolution via ballot”. “If this Movement does not result to a change in the system come 2023, it was a waste, “PoliticalRevolution”.
I joined the protest more to play my little part in giving direction and achievable purpose to the protest. SARS is not an isolated malaise. SARS is an integral component of a virus infested and saturated system. This is why I construed SARS to mean Severe Anomaly and Rot in the System, in order to encapsulate what we are dealing with. When we understand what we are dealing with, then we can plan the prescription and dose for treatment.
Now to my purpose of picking up my pen back from the cobweb drawer. I want to dish out some food for thought to my fellow vibrant, optimistic yet recently devastated Nigerian youths. In our present situation of hope, devastation of hope and resurgence of hope, flaring tempers, watery eyes and melted hearts occasioned by the shameless massacre of armless and innocent “leaders of tomorrow” by a coalition of gutless blood sucking demons both in Agbada, mufti, black uniforms and military regalia, we must begin to think realistically, circumspectly and objectively.
I want us to ask ourselves these few questions:
1. Why are we protesting? What is the goal?
2. What is the most feasible way to achieve our goal.
3. The blood of our fallen heroes especially at Lekki tollgate must never be vain. How do we make that happen? What is the best possible way to make it happen?
I was having a discuss recently on a youth platform and it was all steam from venting tempers, steam spewing without direction nor purpose that it can not be used to boil anything. I understand the devastation. I am devastated also. Going online social media these few days is a full bouquet subscription to depression. We don’t want the blood of the slain to be in vain. We all want to do something fast. Hence my question. What is that something that will yield the desired effect? Let’s briefly analyze our possible options given the dice on our hands.
We can continue the protests on the streets. We can come out in numbers so large and ask them to kill us all. Guess what that will lead to? They will kill us all. The shameless deployment of military and the reprehensible and disgusting lekki tollgate massacre is an indication to the reality that these blood sucking political class has the capacity to oversee the massacre of millions of people if that is what is necessary to keep them in power. This is Africa. This is not a place where peaceful protest work.
I learned that one of the current ministers in Nigeria, talking about the recent happenings in the country allegedly described it as “youths catching fun”. Imagine that. Youths getting killed by Government sponsored forces is “fun” to these people. Is it not also “FUNny” that the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo Olu, came on National Television to say that no lives were lost in a massacre despite brazen evidences? These men do not care how many people die. The late Pop King, Michael Jackson already said it; “They don’t really care about us”. The only way to get government attention especially in Africa is by commensurate violence or by politics (Votes). Peaceful protest does not work anywhere in Africa. Show me one that worked. Peaceful protest only works in a sane society. Nigeria is a mad society. Only thinking about the happenings in Nigeria is enough to inflict you with insanity. Is it not ironical that BokoHaram members and Bandits are treated like Kings in a country that massacres armless peaceful protesters? This is the reality of the space in which we find ourselves by a misfortune of birth.
What then is the next possible line of action for we the youths? Do we now go violent? Going violent will be like a dog suggesting bad names to someone that had been looking for a bad name to give it in order to kill it. People that are already sponsoring thugs and hoodlums to both attack peaceful protesters and dent the public image of the protest in order to send in their killing machines on peaceful protesters. What will then happen if we decided to “fight them”. They will deploy fighter jets and RPGs (Rocket Propelled Grenades). Already the APCs (Armoured Personnel Carriers) have been rolled out. Going violent is the signal they need to rain the pre-planned terror on us. Least you may not have noticed, what we are into as a country has no form nor likeness of a democracy. Rather it has the dominant gene of the opposite situation in it’s DNA. Like I have fore-mentioned, these men are no longer human beings. Many of them feast on human flesh and blood. They don’t care if a million of us are killed in cold blood. They don’t care if this degenerates into a crises situation or even a civil war at that. This is Africa.
There is this rather fabulous hope that maybe if we keep protesting in the way we are currently going about it, maybe the almighty protectors of the world, the United States of America or the United Kingdom or the United Nations or any other Foreign knight in shining armor will come to our aid. We are forgetting too quickly that these foreign knights that we are looking to and hoping that they will come to our rescue actually played a crucial role in landing us into the situation we are in today. These foreign powers cares nothing about us. Like in the case of the Rwandan Genocide in 1994, to them, what is happening here is just black men killing black men. Especially now that they are focused on the American Elections. Their only interest in Africa is their interest in Africa, that is well served by the present state of Africa. Let’s not be deceived. We are on our own.
And if there is ever a chance that these foreign elements will intervene, there are more chances than not that it will only make the situation worse by escalating the crisis. Remember Syria, Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan etc. We should begin to forget about these foreign elements that will instigate wars and supply weapons to both warring factions; just to serve their personal interest.
What other options are we left with to make sure that our massacred martyrs didn’t die in vain? Maybe we should keep tweeting #EndSARS and #LekkiMassacre and keep them trending. I wholeheartedly agree to this. But the motive or idea behind it maybe what I do not agree with. Tweeting about and trending #EndSARS and other hashtag associated with our struggle may as well pass as an exercise in futility. Our target audience or rather target object are stone hearted vampires. People that are not moved by the sight of blood can not blink at the sight of tweets and trends. Also as aforementioned, the international audience we are hoping to reach may just be clinging to a smoke screen, a false hope. The knight in shining armor mentality is only a fancy idea deprived of the realistic obvious. THEY DON’T REALLY CARE ABOUT US.
I am in no way attempting to paint another hopeless scenario here but let’s face it. What now is the most feasible way forward. In my little way, this write up like I earlier stated is not for naysaying but to proffer a way forward as already proffered and alluded to by deep thinking Nigerians. Before our candle of hope gets burnt out in candle light processions in honor of our fallen and yet to be fallen heroes, while our hearts melts like molten lava as our blood boils and erupts through our eyes as discolored tears, let us with our last flicker of hope and drop of strength, come back to the drawing board and strategically plan to win this war with the most feasible and achievable technique and approach.
The problem with Nigeria is a virus that has colonized the system. We are dealing with an established rotten system. SARS is only a part of that system that can not be dealt with individually. As the protest continues, we have seen a barrage of demands made by protesters. From addressing the corruption in the National Assembly, to addressing underdevelopment and then generally to ending bad government. The issues on ground are enormous making the demands voluminous and seemingly unachievable by a single fell swoop approach of protest. Some quarters are coming up with the idea of addressing the issues one after the other, meaning we shall be singling out issues and having multiple protest on each issue. How realistic is that? How long did it take us to come to a position of having this protest. Protest is not an easy nor desirable activity on a normal day. It is exhausting and tiring even as it is essential.
I am not seeing the possibility of we coming out to protest against every single issue bedeviling this country. They are enormous. From the top to the bottom. The issue at the spare head of the current protest is that of police atrocities and we are demanding for SARS to be ended. Superficial as it may be, SARS has been disbanded. But the fact remains that we still need a special unit to tackle special security challenges, hence the formation of the equally rejected SWAT. We are rejecting SWAT because we are aware that it is merely a change of badge with the same people. But even given a situation where all the officers in the defunct SARS unit are withdrawn as promised, the new officers that will replace them will definitely be taken from the same police force that also has the severe symptoms of the rotten system. Let me ask, are ALMOST all police men not like SARS men in their own rights? SARS officers are simply police officers with more jurisdiction and power to do the kind of things they do, hence the kind of things they have been doing. They are all abusing the level of power at their disposal.
Perhaps this is why we are calling for a total reforming of the police system. Good and fine. The political juggernauts have started making moves towards that; even though we do not trust them. But why don’t we trust them? Is it not because we are singling out the police component of the rotten system to change? And we may or may not know that we are asking the system to change a component of the system that is vital to the functioning of the system. We know that the people whose responsibility it is to reform the police will not willingly do so because the present situation of the police is favorably to them. So what are we really doing? Asking the system to commit suicide?
We keep protesting with the #EndSARS spare head thereby given the system the opportunity to tag us as trouble makers. They have been setting up one committee after the other to address the demands of protesters. Even as we have known from experience that those are mere razzmatazz; but they can well say that they are doing something hence what are we still protesting for? Drop sentiment and ask yourself, what are you still protesting for? #EndSARS? EndSWAT? How? For them to kill all the police officers and create new ones? New ones from where? From heaven? For the IG to resign? Or for something in the cloud to shift and say “Behold, the police have now been reformed, better welfare will now given them, better salaries will now be given them etc” before we leave the streets.
But wait a minute, are these not the same police we are fighting for, the same policemen we see physically and on numerous videos making rounds, shooting at us and leading thugs to hack us? If they have been maltreated for years, why don’t they protest and speak for themselves? If policemen goes on protest, who will shoot them? How much is the salary that they are afraid to loose by seeking a better welfare for themselves? What about the Army? Are soldiers not facing the same maltreatment that we the common man in Nigeria face from the system in Nigeria? It will shock you that asides the god-fearing few, an average policeman may rather the system remain the way it is than to have the reforming that we are demanding for them. They make more money from extorting the masses on the streets than any salary you think they should be paid.
Least I digress too much from the sequence of points. Back to the issue of “Why are we protesting”. It is obvious that the protest have gone beyond addressing police brutality and have transcend to other numerous issues that have been summarize into bad Government hence the hashtag #EndBadGovernment. To me, this is a very good one as I have always wanted the people to see the overall picture. The problem with SARS and the police is a reflection of the problem in the government or more appropriately, a problem in the system. But my concern is, we are still using the spare head of #EndSARS to address the issue of a bad government. I think it’s high time we called the problem by it’s tribal name. I personally prefer tweeting with the hashtags #EndBadGovernment #RestructureNigeria #ReconstructNigeria. I add the hashtag #EndSARS for audience sake. So that as I reach the audience, I present the real issue on a broader view.
Ending bad government or ending the SARS (SEVERE ANOMALY and ROT in the SYSTEM) will invariably stream down to address all the other issues that needs to be addressed. Now my point is, now that we know that what we need to end is way more than police SARS, now that we know that we need to change and redirect the course of our country, which I believe is the reason why we throng the streets in protest in defiance of flying bullets by security forces and rampaging hatchets of government sponsored thugs, now that we know that we need to #EndBadGovernment, how then do we go about it? This is why I have taken my time in this write up to analyze the apparent ways we may likely want to go about it.
The most feasible and achievable way to address the overall malaise, the overreaching problem, and the overall demand for an end to bad Government in Nigeria is by using our votes come 2023 elections to bring about a total and complete system overhaul, a total system formatting, a complete system flush. If we can keep the fire burning, if we can keep the awareness up on social media, if we can keep trending the hashtags but more importantly, also begin to create the awareness for what we need to accomplish come 2023 elections or any future elections; even as we tweet and come out physically to protest when possible (But never to make ourselves available to be used for target practice by blood sucking vampires anymore). The essence of the protest, both physical and online should be to keep the fire burning in our hearts so as to drive us into doing the needful.
What we need to do now is to begin to do the work necessary to achieve a complete flushing of the political system in Nigeria. I call it Political Revolution and I think we should make it trend along side the #EndSARS hashtag. Let us keep refreshing our minds and the minds of anyone we can on what we need to do come 2023 elections. We need to rid the system of any and everyone, including their families and friends, anyone who has ever held any position of government or political appointment in this country from 1960 till date, we need to make sure that they never rule over us again forever. They are the pathogens that carry and transfer the virus that has infested the system of the country. The are the cancerous cells. They are the ones that “knows how it is done”. And it is this “How it is done” that has left us in this state we are. We do not need people that knows how it is done- the Nigerian Modus Operandi. In the New Nigeria we hope to achieve, we only need people that knows “How it should be done”. We do not need people who knows our history. Our history is bedeviling. We don’t want to know what Shagari did to Awolowo nor what Ojukwu did and Gowon didn’t do. That is their story to live and die with. We only need people whose only care is about how our future should be. We will write our own story of how we built Nigeria into a global spectacle.
What we need is a complete youth take over. Let the old ones sit and watch us rule. We don’t even need their guidance. Since 1960 they have been guiding the country, where have they guided it to? There are workable templates of Government around the world from which we can copy. They will only guild us back to the doom days. We need to set the ball in motion now. I have mentioned this to quite some people who have responded with “2023 is too far”. They think that 2023 is too far because they do not realize the extent of work that is needed to achieve this goal of a system overhaul. We the youth need to start now to build our own political enclave and it’s structure. Always bearing in mind that no past political affiliate would be allowed entry. It is paramount to the objective.
We need to start creating aware from our neighborhood down to the villages. Imagine the extent of work involved in taking this awareness down to the nook and cranny of Nigeria. 2023 is actually too close. We must begin to act now and fast.
We must never let the blood of those killed to be in vain. And if we don’t achieve this systemic flushing, that will sadly be the case. Because they System will readjust and continue. More than our numerous demands and even arguably greater than the #EndSARS demand, we should be focused and demand for an Electoral Reform. The political class have been making the guise of addressing our demands. Let them address the demand for Electoral Reform. It is more measurable the progress in that direction. It is a more realistic and appraisable demand. If we can achieve Electoral Reform and achieve our own political structure with the current mindset of the youths, then we can cry GLORY! For then has the battle been won.
In conclusion, the way forward is forward. It’s ahead of us. A new NIGERIA is possible but it’s has to be a New Nigeria indeed. We must get rid of the old elements, the old system and the old structures. No more recycling problem to solve problem. We say “WE MOVE” And move we must. We must flush the system completely; of all past and present political office holders and affiliates. We must achieve this with our votes. We must create the platform to make our votes count more through the necessary Electoral Reforms. Then we must come out for the final protest, with our votes, to bring about the Political Revolution critical to actualizing our dreams of a NEW NIGERIA. We don’t want a better Nigeria. we want a NEW NIGERIA. Everything Nu Nu (In Charles Okocha's voice)
So help Us God.
