ABEOKUTA: Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has faulted the nationwide address by President Bola Tinubu, saying it failed to address the brutal crackdown of #EndBadGovernance protesters by security agencies.
Angry Nigtitled “The central problem is the state’s use of live ammunition in reaction to public dissent. In most cases, even tear gas is still dubious, and it is certainly an abuse when there is an obvious peaceful demonstration taking place.
According to the professor, In the past four days, some young Nigerians were killed as the protests turned violent in some states. Worried by the situation, President Tinubu addressed Nigerians in his first nationwide speech.
The President called for calm, insisting that there was no going back on the fuel subsidy removal.and other policies by his Administartion,
His description of the government’s corrective measures since the beginning, aimed at preventing exactly this sort of outbreak, will undoubtedly be given careful consideration for efficacy as well as content analysis.
Obviously the state’s continued erosion in its control over protest management is my main concern; the president’s speech was noticeably deficient in this regard.
The “nation’s security agencies cannot pretend unawareness of alternative models for emulation, civilized advances in security intervention,” according to Soyinka.
“The central problem is the state’s use of live ammunition in reaction to public dissent. In most cases, even tear gas is still dubious, and it is certainly an abuse when there is an obvious peaceful demonstration taking place.
Hunger protest are not exclusive to Nigeria; they are a global call to action. They do, in fact, belong in a class alone, regardless of the side claims that are painted on posters.
They act as a warning to the governments that the citizenry is at a breaking point and as a test bed for their knowledge of the situation.
The terrible response to the nationwide hunger protest that have continued in some regions and in which notice has been served represents a step backwards that pulls the country even further away from the fatal conclusion of the historic ENDSARS protests.
It brings to mind pre-independence Unfortunately, such disregarding of civically deserving individuals empowers security forces to act with impunity and commits the country to a seemingly never-ending cycle of reprisal and resentment.
“The fundamental problem is the state’s use of live ammunition in reaction to public opposing views. Tear gas is still questionable.
See the full statement below:
The HUNGER MARCH As UNIVERSAL MANDATE
I set my alarm clock for this morning to ensure that I did not miss President Bola Tinubu’s impatiently awaited address to the nation on the current unrest across the nation.
His outline of government’s remedial action since inception, aimed at warding off just such an outbreak, will undoubtedly receive expert and sustained attention both for effectiveness and in content analysis.
My primary concern, quite predictably, is the continuing deterioration of the state’s seizure of protest management, an area in which the presidential address fell conspicuously short. Such short-changing of civic deserving, regrettably, goes to arm the security forces in the exercise of impunity and condemns the nation to a seemingly unbreakable cycle of resentment and reprisals.
Live bullets as state response to civic protest – that becomes the core issue. Even tear gas remains questionable in most circumstances, certainly an abuse in situations of clearly peaceful protest.
Hunger marches constitute a universal S.O.S, not peculiar to the Nigerian nation. They belong indeed in a class of their own, never mind the collateral claims emblazoned on posters.
They serve as summons to governance that a breaking point has been reached and thus, a testing ground for governance awareness of public desperation.
The tragic response to the ongoing hunger marches in parts of the nation, and for which notice was served, constitutes a retrogression that takes the nation even further back than the deadly culmination of the watershed ENDSARS protests.
It evokes pre-independence – that is, colonial – acts of disdain, a passage that induced the late stage pioneer Hubert Ogunde’s folk opera BREAD AND BULLETS, earning that nationalist serial persecution and proscription by the colonial government.
The nation’s security agencies cannot pretend unawareness of alternative models for emulation, civilized advances in security intervention.
Need we recall the nationwide 2022/23 editions of what is generally known as the YELLOW VEST movement in France? Perhaps it is time to make such scenarios compulsory viewing in policing curriculum.
In all of the coverage that I watched, I did not catch one single instance of a gun leveled at protesters, much less fired at them even during direct physical confrontations.
The serving of bullets where bread is pleaded is ominous retrogression, and we know what that eventually proves – a prelude to far more desperate upheavals, not excluding revolutions.
The time is long overdue, surely, to abandon, permanently, the anachronistic resort to lethal means by the security agencies of governance. No nation is so under-developed, materially impoverished, or simply internally insecure as to lack the will to set an example.
All it takes is to recall its own history, then exercise the will to commence a lasting transformation, inserting a break in the chain of lethal responses against civic society.
Today’s marchers may wish to consider adopting the key songs of Hubert Ogunde’s BREAD AND BULLETS, if only to inculcate a sense of shame in the continuing failure to transcend the lure of colonial inheritance where we all were at the receiving end. One way or the other, this vicious cycle must be broken.
Wole SOYINKA
A.R,I. Abeokuta