Worrisome developments post EndSARS: An Elder’s, Proverbial, analysis - Ik Muo, PhD.

 

There is this story of an old man who stole a chicken and a mob of angry youths were after him. Along the road,  they met another old man along the road. The elderly chicken-thief called on the old man to look into his bag ‘with the eyes of an elder’ to see if there was any chicken inside it. The old man looked; he sure saw a chicken but using the ‘eye of an elder’ he told the angry youths that he did not see any chicken! The elder-thief was spared. Both elders knew that the chicken was in the bag but the elder-thief had used body language to plead with the intervening elder to save his neck. The intervening elder decided to diplomatically save the thief from the angry youths. I know he would have, later on, advised him to sin no more. That was in the days when elders were elders; when they earned respect and were indeed respected.  Today, as an elder, I am trying to save the government from the angry youths. No chicken is missing. However, what is missing is MUCH MORE than a chicken and all of us are adversely affected by ‘the thing’ that is missing. But as an elder, I wish to intervene, to save the government from itself and from the youths.  However, this is subject to , as our people would say, ‘ma onye agwalu kwe’( That is if the person you are talking to will listen).

Even the Biblical stranger in Jerusalem knows what happened across our land last month; how a group of disciplined, passionate and coordinated youths told the government, and even we, the elders, that enough is enough.  Somebody had classified the protesters as those who went to eat, those who went to party, those who went in search of husbands and wives, those who went to showcase their skills, those who went to market their products and those who went for the main thing. We know how the soldiers came in by powers beyond the control of the governor. We know how those who dined and wined with thugs mobilized or encouraged the thugs (while other stakeholders looked the other way) to ‘intervene’. We know how things turned awry and resulted massive, mindless and criminal rioting, looting, arson. We know that the financial cost of the looting was huge, as much as N5trn as estimated by NECA. Those who went for the looting included the hungry( who took one or two cartons of indomie) the petty thieves( who looted goats from  someone’s truck), the foolish ( who looted tractors( easily traced) and those  who destroyed the busses which they would use or the government properties, which would be repaired by public funds), major thieves( who looted with lorries) the specialized thieves( who went for medical and specialized items) bare-faced criminals( who looted guns), the angry and vengeful( who targeted  Politically Exposed Persons and their interests),  those who protested against insecurity( in the North) those who went for the fun of it( like the small boy who declared himself the IGP)

and those who protested in self-defense( like some policemen in one axis of Delta State.

Now there has been some sundry developments since then. These include the  ‘with-immediate-effect’ establishment  of various judicial panels, the production and marketing of the parochial regime change narrative by the ‘north’, which had said they had no issue with SARS( and yet, 120 anti-SARS petitions( out of 585 nationwide) have been fired by its citizens, who have been protesting stridently over insecurity),  and the statement by Adesina as to how fatherly PMB was or is, which minimized the ‘damages’ to lives. The Lagos panel has thrown up the most absurd developments. It made me remember Fela’s song: ‘you be thief… I no be thief; you be amu-robber, I no be amu robber’.  The soldiers who had denied ever being at Lekki on that day eventually admitted that they were there on the invitation of the Governor,( who had earlier declared: it wasn’t me); that they shot only blank bullets, that nobody died and that they were so over-stretched ( for a nation at  ‘peace’) that the COAS authorized the deployment of trainee-soldiers!  In effect, they called the governor a liar!  They also deposed that they had not done anything about the Lekki affair because nobody had petitioned them! And by the way, Lagos has just presented its budget and 100% of the amount budgeted will not be enough to rebuild Lagos,  and we are talking of those tangible things that can be rebuilt. Sad indeed. However, how do we rebuild those intangibles like the damage done to the Sanwo-Olu  brand and the emergent high level of trust deficit?  There have also been some developments across the globe including the continuation of the extended and expanded protests in Hong-Kong (since June 2020) and Belarus( which has lasted 3 months).

Protesters in Hong Kong & Belarus: See crowd! who di army go shoot?

There was also the resignation of President Merino of Peru within 5 days of assuming office, after police crackdown resulted in JUST 2 deaths. Here, the government has certified about 76 deaths but we have been arguing whether it was by soldiers, policemen or the new citizens in town, the hoodlums  in army uniform( as argued by AGF, Malami who was ensconced in his cozy office at Abuja)or maybe, they committed suicide.

Now to the worrisome, disturbing developments. The government, directly and at times by proxy has decided to clampdown on the alleged EndSARS-ers   because according to Femi Adesina, the law MUST take its course. Suddenly, we have become a law-full nation!  People are being arrested, with permission just sought to detain Eremosele Ajene for one extra month. Thankfully, the magistrate wisely granted him bail (and his mother appears to be more fiery than the son!).  His odyssey within a week shows ho mean our police can be.

Eremosele in ACTION!

 

They arrested him at Ikeja, took him to Command HQ from there to Area F and then to Panti before taking him to Abuja and back to Lagos-all within 1 week. In an effort to break him, they made him a VIP and took him on guarded tour of all police formations in Nigeria! That shows how disroganised  our friends( don’t forget that the Police is your friend!). They did not know what to do with him as it appeared that every unit was saying… away with him! Passports have been seized in the ‘normal course of business’ travels have been restricted while the courageous DJ Switch is on the run even though according to the Army, they have no time for her. Accounts have been frozen by the  eagle-eyed CBN, which has now surpassed the DSS and allied bodies in intelligence gathering. The CBN said those affected were terrorists! So, we now have two certified terrorist groups in Nigeria: IPOB and the EndSARS Movement. While the first is laughable, the second is outlandish and unbelievable. And to think that I have 4 terrorists (members of the end-SARS generation) in my house!  I shiver!!! Some people have been taken to Court including high-flying Pastors while Femi Falana has been reported to the International Criminal Court. Perhaps, they are also among the terrorists! I wonder why they did not include the various governors who participated in the protests, starting with the Governors of Lagos and Kwara. And now, the president has said that he would NOT allow any protests again. In a democracy? While Seun Kuti’s planned meeting has been stopped by the police. Luckily for them, the family members intervened; they did not want the shrine to be desecrated again by hoodlums in military uniforms!

Now, what is my elders, proverbial, advice to our government?  I have looked into the bag; I did not see the missing chicken  but one thing is obvious: the government is consciously fishing in troubled waters. Our people say that it is foolhardy to add pepper to an eye ointment; that is not advisable to touch the tail of nwa-agu (a lion-pikin) or even that of a sleeping lion; that the fact that a snake appears not to bite is no reason to use it as a rope; that the fact that the fireplace is calm does not mean that the fire has gone off. And finally they say ‘atoba uto, si wepu aghugho’ friendships should be devoid  deception or hitting below the belt.  The government has done the opposite of these things which our elders have advised that they should not do. In this instance, the government is behaving like the rat, that will be biting you and blowing some air into the wound at the same time so as to assuage the pain. It has promised to give with the right hand (just promise) but has already started retrieving  with the left. The government asked the youth to ‘kool-temper’ and that all would be well.  The youths reluctantly agreed but unfortunately, all has not been well. In a situation in which our Vice President is calling for the rebuilding of trust, the government of which he is a key member is unabashedly destroying the trust of the largest proportion of its citizens, through deception and double-speaks!  In effect, the govt appears not to have learnt anything  from the  EndSARS affair. Some policemen have also not learnt anything from the sad event one of them being  Paul Audu who battered a driver, Godwin Akkpama, with a plank over failure to pay a tithe of N200 at a checkpoint along the Eku-Abraka road last week! Luckily, the police acted swiftly, treating the driver and ‘defaulting’ the officers involved!

So, where are those who asked the youths to pipe down and give government time to address their grievances? Our people say that when you hold a warrior on the ground, you extract everything you want from him.  And that anyone stung by  a bee takes flight at the sight of a tsetse fly. The youths wanted to extract everything from the government but we begged them to relax and see what the government would do. Now they have relaxed and we have seen what the government has done. And when next this kind of situation occurs, we know what will be, all because we are behaving as if we have won the war. No government ever wins a war with its people, when they are determined to do war with the government. Examples abound. The government should not push its luck too far! I have spoken, as an elder!

Ik Muo, PhD. Department of Business Administration, OOU, Ago-Iwoye. 08033026625

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