August Protests: The good, the bad and the ugly

WEDNESDAY COLUMN BY USSIJU MEDANER

info@medaner.com, justme4justice@yahoo.com

Eventually, the organisers of the nationwide protest got what they wanted? They apparently wanted a replay of Kenya’s protest and the gruesome attacks on its government and public infrastructure, and here we are, states have been set on fire, public properties and structures destroyed, businesses ravaged and the nation is on its knee, losing approximately 400 million naira daily since we paralysed normal business activities some days ago. And quite unfortunately, we have manifested our unpatriotic tendencies for the country and an unbridled hatred for the president by our responses to the wanton destruction that greeted the protest across few states in the North. It became obvious that we were not interested in the protest creating economic changes or reversing government policies, but rather that properties and public infrastructure being destroyed; even, that people are dying. The organisers seem to like the trend.

It began, immediately the news of the Kenyan protest came out. And they wanted to reenact it in Nigeria. But there are questions we must ask ourselves: who is the real spearhead or spearheads of the protest? Beyond the enthusiastic carrier activists, the entrepreneurial activists, who live on creating and canvassing public opinions against government systems; of course, not because they love the country or are compatriots, but because it is a business that pays in both recognitions and financial emolument. I cannot mention names, but in the last few days, I have but become suspicious of a number of individuals who would ordinarily qualify as senior citizens and statesmen, but who threw caution in the wind and manifestly refused to condemn the protest, and are using every opportunity to spur on the protesters and wait at every corner to deride the government’s attempt to stop the protest.

I ask, is there hunger in the land? Yes, Nigerians are moaning under the weight of a serious hyper inflation that literally spares no product, but with significant effect on basic food items. We all know the removal of fuel subsidy has created a temporal inflationary mode in the transport industry, with undeniably effects on several other sectors. But, I would also ask, is protest against the Federal government, and one at this material time, the right response from Nigerians? I don’t think so. I also would like to ask, are the ongoing protests genuinely organised against hunger in the land, and what we generally term bad governance, or is it a politically modulated outing to set a tone for future elections? Did we not deceive ourselves when we claimed we were marching out peacefully against the government? Was it a lure to bring out uncontrollable thugs while we watch them do the dirty destructive jobs for us? Nowhere in the world do we have peaceful protests. Currently, the UK is boiling at the back of a peaceful protest; and the human rights “claimed watch” are now out arresting and prosecuting protesters. I do hope that the undertone lessons are learnt.

If we have to storm the streets against bad governance, against corruption and against inflation in the economy, then, why did we wait until now? And why must it begin with the Bola Ahmed Tinubu government, an Administration only a year old? Yahaya Bello allegedly went with over 80 billion public funds and till now, we didn’t consider it appropriate to march on the state government house for attempts to protect him from justice. Most of our local government administrations earn as much as a billion naira every thirty days, both from FAAC allocations and internally generated revenues, yet the local government areas are as dry as a desert, when developmental prospects are placed side by side with the revenues they regularly receive, yet, the local government chairmen are saints moving freely. Why didn’t we in the last years that we claimed we have been suffering march in protest on any of the local government secretariats? The state governors are perhaps the worst; beyond collecting monthly allocation, internally generated revenues, the last one year has seen the state incomes more than double because the accrued benefits of subsidy removal are been shared on top of the allocations, to fast track the alleviation of the hardships posed by the subsidy removal. What programs have we seen the states undergone in that regard to lessen their residents’ sufferings? Almost none! Are we blind to those? Maybe? Nobody has, and is marching against any of the state governors; in fact they are saints. They are not the target of the attack. It is the government at the centre we want to attack for the sins of 36 state governors, 774 local government chairmen who do not allow development to stream down to all corners of the country.

I will be very blunt in saying today that what we have witnessed in the last few days was an express replay of the events of the 1966 attempt by a section of the country to destroy others to occupy the centre. We ended up at that time seeing major leaders of the North and a part of the South gruesomely murdered on a morning when one Major Kaduna Nzeogu has promised all leaders across all regions were to be evenly killed. While the then Prime Minister jetted out of the country two days to the killings, others from the same region were totally spared. Till now, the wound and the perceived sense of justice are still fresh in some quarters of the country. Again, claiming the region is wise, we have seen the tacit and successfully orchestrated plan to set all other regions on fire, while preserving a single region. We saw the Obidients rising up in every other state of the country except only in the states of one region.

This time around, with a political calculation to destroy and de-market the sitting president in all his strongholds, we saw contestants for the 2023 presidential election who lost out, desperately supporting the ongoing protest. Unfortunately, the likes of Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar, have redefined what patriotism and being an elder statesman implies. Rather than join the forces and voices calming down the protests and the protesters, asking for dialogue, they are busy urging them on, and castigating the government for all its actions and inactions. It is certain they want the protesters to see clearly they are on their sides in preparation for 2027. The duo have become so blinded by their desires to the point that they would be okay to see the country burned if it would make them president in 2027. It is unfortunate we would be parading these men as leaders in a country that begs for leadership at this material time in our unfolding history.

Another concern is that the ruling party as a whole is not cohesive enough and perhaps nursing the old pre- and post-election grievances. This lack of cohesion is probably the reason why most, if not all the attacks on political party secretariats are on APC, and not PDP or LP. This shows a clear pattern to demarket the ruling party by all dark means. This calls for the need to rejig the machine to reconcile party members forthwith.

It is obvious that the government cannot but respond to the demands of the youths on the street, regardless of who the sponsors are and what ill motives they harbour. The protest has once again shown us all how exposed our children and youths are to influences, especially external ones; we just saw thousands of underage children destroying the country because they were propelled by some forces. We cannot afford to fold our hands and allow these children to get recruited by forces and actors against the wellness of the nation; that is, the insurgency, banditry, kidnapping and now, hostile political opposition. We must design sustainable programs to engage the strength of all Nigeria children and youths in positive, progressive and mutually benefiting projects. This is a task the government must prioritise in the aftermath of this protest.

This is where agriculture would come handy. Government programs in agriculture must become more obvious, intense and all encompassing. A strong response to this protest must include a more direct government intervention in agriculture in the country. Beyond, the status quo, provision of loan facilities, seeds and seedling provision, we should begin to see a more proactive direct partnership between the government and organised farmers, mostly of the youth population across the northern region, that include the government collaborating with the farmer in providing access to farmland, capital resources, trainings via extension officers, guaranteed markets for produce and an acceptable profit sharing ratio. If the government would be formally involved as narrated, then, it would become relatively easy to invoke the commodity market price regulation rules of the country. We would be able to get to the point where mutually benefiting prices would be submitted by the appropriate quarters to protect both the farmers and the final consumers.

Government intervention in agriculture and food production must also include deliberate efforts by the government to end the practice of manufacturing industry buying off all imported produce that serve both as their raw material and public consumables and thereby creating a market competition, a disturbance that forces price up, like in the case of beverages and alcohol producing companies competing with ordinary citizens and households consumptions of sugarcane, fruits, grains etc. These companies should be made to import their raw materials directly for as long as local production cannot serve the dual purpose; meanwhile, they should be made to enjoy reasonable waivers that depend on the particular product contribution to the national economic growth and development.

There is also the need to address some pertinent issues surrounding the petroleum subsidy removal. It is a given that the subsidy regime is gone, but we must be seen taking concrete steps that ameliorate the direct sufferings of the citizens as a result of the removal. Government must also respond to the non-relenting crude theft, and the overall corruption in the national handling of our crude oil, with the same conviction and determination with which it ended the subsidy and took a number of other sensitive and difficult policy decisions. If we can stop corruption in the nation’s oil and gas industry, then, we would not have to talk about oil subsidy and excessive pump prices that are majorly responsible for hunger in Nigeria. We would be able to put back our local national refineries on production, meet local requirements via all local productions and see costs of production and pump prices of the products going down. However, now that we have concluded to make crude available to all local refineries, including the national refineries in exchange for naira, it is expected to see remarkable drops in cost and prices.

An imperative which seems to be absent in the policy quarters and also in the president’s speech which I think if addressed in the short term would stem the persistent rise in prices is the impact of AGO oil in the current high costs and prices across the nation. AGO is largely used to convey PMS and other goods across the country; and the price is quite high. Not long ago, the new Dangote refinery which sources for foreign crude to produce AGO announced to sell locally at N1000. To put it in context, for instance, before now, to transport onions from Borno to Lagos using diesel powered trucks cost about N300,000 but now it has risen to about N2,000,000. This is one area that needs an immediate response. I would suggest the Presidency offers another considerable incentives to the Dangote refinery and other local refineries to increase diesel production locally in a manner that will further crash the price per litre to N500. If Dangote can achieve N1,000 per litre with foreign supplies, then, the government offering support in this critical times, even if it’s a temporary measure, should crash down the price to N500.

We must critically reanalyse the diesel factor in the national fuel mix as I pointed out above. For as long as the pump price of diesel remains high, the cost of almost everything in the country would be high as well. Manufacturing and a substantial part of transportation, including the transportation of PMS depend solely on diesel, and their high end energy costs are majorly driven by diesel cost. This is where the president must make it a priority to oversee the direct allocation of crude for the purpose of AGO production in the short term which would definitely bring about a reasonable drop in product prices.

As a country, we must all remember that the challenges we face today are a product of cumulative bad governance and I dare say followership since we got independence in 1960. There has not been a single period since then that we can comfortably say that all is well with the system we built. It would be untenable to assume it is right to drop the bulk of the blame on the table of a single president who has spent only 14 months in office. It is our problem, and all hands must be on deck to find permanent and sustainable solutions to them. Protesting would not present the solution we desire; we must shun our biases and bigotries and come out openly with realistic and workable pathways to a national reengineering of our systems within the ambit of existing policies rather than complaining and making outrageous demands.

We all owe the security outfits in the country high praises. The level of professionalism and restraints demonstrated by the police is top notch and worthy of our praise and commendation. We saw how officers in Kaduna professionally handled and diffused what could have boiled down to a violent confrontation. The most civic response of the military even in the face of many provocations, shows that the force has evolved to the most citizen friendly outfit it is expected to be. The Chief of Defense Staff, by his leadership and speeches has set the military on a path that will save the country’s leadership from human right attacks from some human right vultures waiting for evidence to descend on us. Nonetheless, we would not take the civility of the security forces for granted; if there arises the need to prioritise safety and security of innocent citizens, properties and the sanctity of the country, there wouldn’t be any other option but for the security to do their work.

Finally, let me say this, for those who stand by the side, fanning the dark ember of the protest, and waiting to see the north burn to achieve some set political advantages, you must know this, that when the north burns and is destroyed, the next place would be the region you think you are preserving. Niger Republic is not safe, and they would all turn and move down in droves to the south and become the greatest challenges you can ever imagine. If your problem is to become president of Nigeria, organise your campaign team, produce a watertight campaign and descend in 2027 like Asiwaju did in 2023; he won at the poll. But for now, allow the president to do his work.

God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.