A speech of context without content

NIGERIANS woke up to the actualization of the planned protest on 1st August, 2024 to the dismay of the leadership of Nigeria, which earlier dismissed the threat of the national protest as idle talks of some irresponsible youths. Rather than doing something to avert the protest, the government discourteously waited for it to happen. Unfortunately, lives and properties were lost as hoodlums seized the opportunities of the protest and the tactlessness of the security agents to carry out criminal activities. Most of those who fell to the bullets of the police, particularly in Kaduna, while trying to curtail the activities of the hoodlums were underage boys living on the street and were caught up in the mayhem because they had no home to go. Sadly, the governments of Nigeria that have in succession denied those children a worthy life through quality education and life enhancement policies finally washed their hands with the blood of those children after feeding fat on our common wealth. Yes, some of them participated in looting, and there can’t be any justification for such criminal act.

But for whatsoever crime committed by people of that age; they were too young to die. Let’s not forget that those children became what they were due to the negligence, failure, greed and corruption of the ruling class.To those of you who pulled the trigger on those children for becoming what the government programmed them to become, I hope that their lives that you took will make you immortal. Everyone with a hand in the death of those children and other peaceful protesters should patiently await the visitation of the inevitable punishment of God on them. We condemn, without any reservations, the activities of the hoodlums who looted and committed other crimes under the guise of the protest and implore the security agents to fish them out for appropriate punishment. We also refuse to be blackmailed by the activities of those criminal elements to delegitimize our constitutional right to protest against the government. The same constitutional right that those who are protesting for the government have is what we have. It should be noted that our President, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, also protested aggressively against the policies of his predecessors that he considered anti-people. One of those policies he protested against was fuel subsidy removal. He enjoyed the grace of becoming the President of Nigeria today and those governments he protested against did not use live bullet on protesters. The power of the bullets that is being deployed to repress the legitimate and peaceful agitations of the Nigerian people under his governance today will definitely have a conspicuous space in the black page of our national history.

While we were grieving over those we lost through the bullets of policemen and the nefarious activities of the hoodlums, we got the exciting news of the president’s addressing the country in the hope that he would deal with the issues that led to the avoidable deaths we recorded in relation to the protest. What we got from the president instead was a flexing of authority and the excuse of the past administration’s failure. The president should be reminded that he is occupying the position to serve the Nigerian people, not to lord over the Nigerian people. He also does not need to disparage his predecessors; we know how bad in succession his predecessors were. We know that Nigeria was bad under Rtd Gen. Buhari, but Senator Tinubu has made it far worse.

The president should accept responsibility for the catastrophic downturn of our national economy and infrastructural decadence instead of putting the blame on his predecessors and bad citizens. Bad citizen is an offshoot of bad government. A government that employs the citizens and pays them slave wage cannot stop corruption in public service. A government that cannot guarantee health care, decent retirement benefit, education for the children is a harbinger of evil to the country it governs.The citizens of any country are as good as the leadership of the country. No country can boast of patriotic citizens when the leaders of country plunge the citizen into poverty through maladministration and corruption. Any poverty stricken society can never be devoid of crime. We got to where we are now as a result of policies that were poorly formulated and unthoughtfully implemented by this government. Despite the unprecedented level of poverty in the country, the satisfaction of the insatiable greed of the political office holders remains the priority of the government at the expense of the general wellbeing of the citizenry. Our country has been so messed up today to the extent that almost everyone wants to leave the country. Those who have the means to leave are leaving. Those of us without the means to leave have a choice to make.

We either save the ship or we sink with it! The protest against bad governance in Nigeria is not a protest against anyone. It is a protest for the survival of our nation and the national prosperity.

• Rabana writes in from Minna, Niger State.

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