The #EndSARS protest, one of the most extensive and organised civil uprising in our postcolonial history, has continued to generate ripples nationally and globally. For example, the youth upsurge or what is now popularly denoted as the soro soke (speak out loud) generation, featured prominently at a Special Roundtable organised by the Olu Sanu Centre for Euro-African Studies on nationalist politician, Adegoke Adelabu, at the Lead City University, Ibadan, on Wednesday, November 18. ‘Part of the problem’, one of the discussants, Tayo Adesina, history professor at the University of Ibadan, told the audience, is the discursive manipulation of the term ‘leaders of tomorrow’ as a tool for relegating youths and talented individuals’. Narrated Adesina: “I was in secondary school when General Olusegun Obasanjo became Nigeria’s military president”. Then, we were told, ‘you are leaders of tomorrow’. “Soon after, I entered university for undergraduate and postgraduate studies and my designation as a leader of tomorrow became almost routine. I began my academic career at the University of Ibadan, where I rose to become a professor, yet I am still referred to as a leader of tomorrow. Now, I am about to retire from the university, yet in some quarters, I am still considered a leader of tomorrow“, the academic concluded amidst an uproar of laughter. In other words, are we as a nation, not chloroforming the youths, however we define that category, by calling them ‘leaders tomorrow’, rather than seeing them as today’s leaders, capable of innovative interventions in their own rights?
Beyond the mischievous play on words and their deployment as negative signifiers, there is an ongoing double face and schizophrenia on the part of government regarding the #EndSARS protest. To take an instance, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), said on Tuesday, at a meeting of the National Security Council, held at the Presidential Villa, that his regime will carry the youths along in policymaking and implementation, in order to prevent a recurrence of the #EndSARS protest. Speaking in the same vein, on the same day, at a press briefing, Mohammed Dangyachi, Minister for Police Affairs, elaborated that the Buhari regime will pursue a policy of dialogue with all stakeholders, especially the #EndSARS protesters, in order to maintain peace and bring about a turnaround in police activity, posture and visage. Of course, this is not the first time in which government has emphasised the imperative of dialogue. Along that same line, several state governments around the country and the National Human Rights Commission set up judicial panels of inquiry in order to give vent and public space for airing grievances against the police and to determine the root causes of the #EndSARS protests. Unfortunately, however, contradictory signal actions and body language emerged recently as government began to subject some of the protesters to intimidation, harassment, seizure of travel papers, detention, among other things. This much became obvious with the recent statement by 32 Civil Society Organisations which accused government of oppression and abuse of human rights regarding #EndSARS activists. Some of the CSOs include the Centre for Democracy and Development, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, YIAGA Africa and Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre. Part of the statement states that, ‘Increasingly, protest organisers are being intimidated and coerced by various state institutions, there have also been situations in which travel bans which have no basis in the rule of law have been slammed on individuals for their alleged roles in the #EndSARS protest’.
Indeed, on Monday, The PUNCH reported a police plot to detain one of the #EndSARS protesters, Eromosele Adene, for extra 30 days, after an initial period of detention at the State Criminal Investigation Department. The point here is that it is difficult to reconcile the policy of dialogue with the youth protesters and other stakeholders with what is beginning to look like a post-event campaign of intimidation and victimisation of members of the #EndSARS movement. Undoubtedly, this is bound to raise the issue of trust and sincerity, and whether the advertised policy of dialogue is itself a decoy. This contradictory posture which, on the one hand, raises the banner of dialogue, while on the other, abrogates the level-playing field that constitutes a facilitator of the meeting of minds is all the more astonishing because government itself had conceded the genuineness of the demands for reform made by the youths, a revolt which interestingly included the daughters of the President and the Vice-president. Moreover, the fact that government accepted to terminate the infamous career of SARS, as well as the 5-point demand made by the protesters, suggests that it has bought into the agenda. It is difficult to reconcile upholding the legitimacy of a protest with intimidating the protesters. Of course, we are not here talking about those who hijacked the protest and turned it into a looting spree, not just against government institutions but also against individuals, some of whom are struggling to put things together. To be sure, a number of those raiders were arrested either during or after the looting sprees. There is nothing to suggest, thus far, that it was the same group of protesters, many of whom maintained a dignified and urbane posture, waving the national flag and singing the national anthem to demonstrate patriotic commitment that masterminded or took part in the looting. It should also be remembered that in terms of sequence, hell was left loose after the tragic event of the Black Tuesday in which security forces reportedly fired at protesters singing the national anthem.
Before then, there were also the provocative activities of strike breakers who directly confronted the #EndSARS protesters in Lagos and Abuja, beating up and wounding several of them, in part, escalating the terror quotient. Hopefully, an authoritative account of these events will be commissioned and written so that real lessons can be drawn from them. It is possible that those in government emphasising dialogue are not fully aware of the persecution being meted out to the protesters by other arms of the state, who may be acting on their own. Though, even if that was the case, it does not speak well about the level of coherence and joint policymaking in government. At any rate, because the protesters are Nigerian citizens, they ought to be entitled to the fundamental liberties granted by the 1999 Constitution (as amended) to dissenters and protesters. The right to disagree and of peaceful assembly are fundamental to the evolution of democracy worldwide. Imagine how colourless and hapless American democracy would look today if no American citizen can disagree with President Donald Trump’s sit-tight tactics, as well as violation of some of the most ennobling norms of that country’s democracy.
Coming back home, it should be recognised that every attempt to abrogate, even by subterfuge, the right of protesters is a blow delivered to the prospects of democratic development and our progress as a nation. For government to make good its promise of dialogue, going forward, it should put a stop to all activities calculated to punish, victimise or reprimand the protesters who have excitingly widened and deepened democratic discourse in a country groping for redirection. You cannot dialogue in fetters. Government, therefore, is enjoined to provide the buttressing infrastructure and ethos for meaningful and productive dialogue.
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