By
Taoreed Abdullahi
Since I was born around the mid-80s, this will be the first time I saw people irrespective of status, ethnicity, or tribe complaining of hardship in the land. Nigeria, my country, is full of fertile land and country of opportunities. It was as if a new nation had just been created in Nigeria. Going by the situation in the market, things are expensive, price of goods and services are skyrocketing beyond the reach of the masses. The common man foods such as yam, beans, garri, cassava flake, and others are now big man food going by their prices.
How did we arrive at this? This is why some Nigerians are calling for a change. In response to the hardship, some of them have gone to their social media to call for protests as a way of calling the attention of relevant authorities to the situation and finding solutions it.
A lot of information, posters, and hash-tags are on social media, calling for protests over hardship in the land. A lot of people have been sending warnings that protests should be avoided.
Who is afraid of protest?
Is the government not aware of the situation? I think, instead of calling the kettle black or tagging some Nigerians for being behind the proposed protest, government officials should preoccupy themselves with how to solve the problem. Our leaders are doing a lot in solving the matter but it has not yielded the desired results. Our leaders should be asking themselves the following questions: Why do people want to protest? What can they do to address the grievances, both in the immediate and long-term? And how do they ensure that the protest does not get out of hand? Finding appropriate answers or proffering solutions to the questions would put an end to the issues at hand.
Is protest a crime? No. The 1999 Nigerian constitution, as amended (Section 40) guarantees the right of citizens to peaceful protest. The courts have also affirmed that right. What should preoccupy the minds of our security agents now is how to provide a secure conducive environment for citizens to protest peaceably in line with constitutional provisions and the African Charter on Human Rights.
Government at all levels should continue to engage and do everything possible at their disposal to ease the hardship. The Federal Government has demonstrated leadership by distributing tons of rice to the states for onward distribution to people at the grassroots. It’s a great move in the right direction, but some experts think that such may not solve the problem. They have recommended a special market where people can go to buy food items at a cheaper rate instead of channelling such efforts to the State Government to distribute.
To a lot of Nigerians, the experience of the ENDSARS protest was the reason for calling for caution and appealing to the youths to shed their sword. The damage done to government investments, infrastructures, and property and the destruction of monuments may come to mind when a protest of such a nature is being proposed especially by the youths who usually lack coordination. To some people, the fear of the protest being hijacked comes to their mind. Some of the questions in their minds include, would bad elements not hijack the protest? Would government property be saved? Or are businesses of innocent Nigerians not going to be affected? Yes, it’s true, but we need to call for calm and beg our government to do the needful, the hardship is telling on our people.
Everyone has the right to protest and it must be done in line with the Constitution of the land.
The protests should not be a thing to be scared of by the present administration. We were living witnesses to the protests held in 2012 when Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was President. What led to the protests then, on January 1, 2012? President Goodluck Jonathan announced the removal of fuel subsidy, therefore, adjusting the pump price of petrol from N65 per litre to N141 in a move that sparked mass protests, known as ‘Occupy Nigeria’ across major cities of the country.
The protests forced the government to adjust the price of Petroleum products to N97 after more than a week of protests, it was further reduced to N87 in 2015. Dr. Jonathan faced serious backlash from the adjustment in fuel price, especially from leaders of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, who are now mostly in the All Progressives Congress APC.
As for me, youths, if you’re to join any protest, you need to think of engaging the government in a productive dialogue that would be about positive development.
I feel our pains, we need to calm down and continue to use all available channels to speak to the government on our needs. The majority of us have graduated staying in our father’s house without tangible jobs; some of us have acquired skills with working tools, but no reasonable work to support our family.
The protest is good but we need to get it organized, a lot of people are out there to destroy our common heritage, and we need to prevent them in our planning to let the government hear our grievances. Let us educate our colleagues to maintain orderliness and coordinate one another in a manner that would prevent intruders from achieving their goals of destroying our nation.
For the government, the time is now to do what is right for Nigerians. An idle hand is a devil’s workshop, let there be employment opportunities for the youths, it’s important to create avenues for them to explore their talents in taking our country to greater heights. It’s important to create more jobs and opportunities. Our youths deserve attention knowing full well that they are our future.
As we provide a conducive environment to learn and acquire knowledge, we must create a space for them in both public and private to explore. This will also reduce the cases of greener pasture “japa” syndrome among the youths.
TAOREED ABDULLAHI SENT THIS PIECE FROM LAGOS
