The #EndSARS protest, warts and all, has lumbered itself into the pantheon of upheavals that hold great significance for both the present and the future. Beyond the excesses, orchestrated counter violence that sought to derail and demonise it, as well as the rage from down below that provided much of the ungainly drama, it remains an event of enduring import for those who care to learn. Depending on the perspective one brings to the issue, divergent readings have been made with almost everyone being their own historian or interpreter. Like the June 12, 1993 uprising and the more recent 2012 Occupy Nigeria movement, the crisis produced its martyrs, heroes, anti-heroes and brought the world to our doorsteps just as it hurled us unprepared on the world stage. A thousand angry essays could not have drawn as much attention to the state of things in Nigeria or shown us vividly how urgent and overdue fundamental reforms are than those youths at the barricades demanding a different Nigeria employing the #EndSARS and latterly, #EndBadGovernance in Nigeria. Were we to have a reading culture, it will be apparent that all the portents for such an event have been noted, documented and analysed but we are not, sadly. Consequently, several prefer to bury their heads in explanations such as instigations by opposing political parties, or by those who wish to destabilise the government.
Beyond these ephemeral red herrings however, it is evident that the upheavals are the voices of deeper disgruntlement with the country’s refusal to match promise with performance or expectations and predictions of greatness with empirical realities. We the older people have made a mess of the country but have also managed to build ourselves individual safety nets to prevent the unfolding and mishaps of the mess from getting to us and those close to us but the younger strata of the population are not so lucky, they have nowhere to hide from the scorching heat of mis-governance.
Take for example, the rubbish in the education sector where once upon a time, the country enjoyed world-class education comparable to the best in the Anglophone world almost as a giveaway by a developmental state led by leaders, some of whom had the vision to see the value and purpose in investing deeply in human capital. That social Eldorado, needless to stress it, no longer exists as our educational institutions when they are open, have sentenced the young people to learning that is hardly worth the name at cut-throat prices.
About the same tragedy is noticeable in the health sector where public hospitals have regressed from consulting clinics as they were famously called to undertakers where the chances of healing and recovery are frighteningly slim. Contrasted with what obtained in an earlier time when we had one of the best medical institutions in this part of the world and beyond, the degradation is a steep one. I can go on and on but the point has been made, I hope that we cannot expect the youths (Nigerians below 30 now constitute 70 per cent of the population) to put up with a situation where human survival is jeopardised and tales of wellbeing of their beloved country only exist in history books for them.
For the older generation, a somewhat golden past constitutes a paradigm of hope and visionary imagining. For the young, hopelessness and despair are somewhat normative as they never saw a Nigeria that was orderly, well-governed and where the words of leaders could be reasonably relied upon. Change has been much bandied around but has occurred very few times, indeed, compared to our new normal of grand deception. It is something of a miracle that the #EndSARS protest achieved the replacement of SARS with SWAT even if that is little more than optics or window dressing. It is even more of a miracle that the five-point agenda of #EndSARS was readily adopted by government even if what someone has called the trust deficit makes it easy to disbelieve that such promises will be kept. All told, what has been commenced is a necessary conversation between the demographic majority and government even if this occurred or is occurring in circumstances less than commodious. After all, the German social theorist, Karl Marx, warned that men would often make history in circumstances that they did not choose.
Counter-factually, consider that it is unlikely that even the modest gains of the #EndSARS movement would have been realised without the turmoil that attended it considering that four earlier attempts and promises to reform SARS had not availed nor consoled the youths who bear the brunt of the misdeeds of that controversial outfit. In this respect, the apology of the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, one of the very few apologies made by government spokespersons in this sordid scenario regarding failure to heed earlier complaints concerning SARS, suggests that at least some people are listening and learning.
What is important, going forward, is how to proceed with the task of remaking Nigeria through civilised conversations that will pact company with the dialogue of the deaf that has too often prevailed between the citizens and their leaders. As some commentators have pointed out, the dramatics of rioters barging into silos and warehouses where COVID-19 relief materials were hoarded is a language of desperation and despondency that itself may have been provoked by the cocktail of lies and doublespeak they regularly hear from their leaders. Though regrettable because it really should not have come to that, it sends a message that unless the social contract is renewed and revitalised, the teeming under-class who have little or no dignity to protect anyway may rudely gate-crash and upset things in the serial banquets of the affluent and well-to-do.
To re-establish broken faith in governance and politicians, our leaders should act more decisively, talk less and make less promises that they do not intend to keep. Our heroes past, who changed the face of Nigeria, were not men of bombast and never-ending promises but men and women who inspired trust by resolute action and implementation.
In the same manner, let us stop running away from the need to re-invent Nigeria by forging a new consensus along the lines of the 2014 National Conference report whose voluminous output has gathered dust for too long. The protest offers the lesson that too many postponements and dilations do not conduce to healing. To imagine that the country would go on auto-pilot or that its disunity can be mended by bluff and bluster is to exist in a fool’s paradise. You do not solve a problem by side-stepping it or pretending that it does not exist.
Importantly, a new culture of governance based on the ethics of hard work, merit-driven achievements and transparency would do us far more good than a million presidential speeches that do not get to the heart of the matter. Finally, fresh faces, fresh ideas and new perspectives are required to redeem governance from its current staleness and going round in unproductive cycles. As has been suggested, the #End SARS yeomen and women should consider throwing in their hats into the ring of political competition in 2023 as a way of freshening the limited menu of choices we have.
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