Beyond the protests (1)

Against all odds, the organizers of the #EndBadGovernance protests made good their threats on August 1, 2024, when they trooped out with other Nigerians to protest against hunger, hardship and the suffocating economic policies of the administration of President Bola Tinubu. All over Nigeria from Lagos to Abuja, Kano, Port-Harcourt, Benin, Aba and Abeokuta, they spoke with one voice to the government that people are hungry and they are suffering. The prelude to the protest was that a declaration was made for the commencement of protests on August 1.

The response of the government to the protests was the predictable blackmail, threats and attempts to suppress the campaigns. The security agencies became confused and began to speak with different voices. Whilst the police claimed that the organizers were faceless and unknown, the Department of State Security stated that they were known agents of foreign mercenaries trying to destabilize the nation.

Most Nigerians agreed with and supported the protests, except as to the duration and the modalities. Fears were expressed in many quarters that there has never been any peaceful protest in Nigeria, properly so called. It is either the protest is hijacked by hoodlums or disrupted by hired thugs. They then referred to the #EndSARS experience of 2020 when lives were lost and property destroyed beyond contemplation. But of course this was only a smear campaign to discourage the protests, when it was realized that President Tinubu as leader of the opposition in 2012 supported and encouraged the Occupy Nigeria protests against fuel subsidy removal. It was peaceful and well coordinated.

On Friday July 26, 2024, one of the leaders of the Take It Back Movement, Comrade Omoyele Sowore, reached out to me to facilitate police coverage for the protests. I asked about the locus of the organization and he furnished me with a document showing that it was duly registered by the Corporate Affairs Commission on 20th June, 2019, although the legal consequence of that is another matter entirely. With that, I was more comfortable to lend support to the protests. Also, I had in mind the October 2020 experience and wanted us to avoid a situation where the police claimed that organizers are faceless and unrecognized, which may lead to violent confrontations and then bloodshed.

So, I wrote to the police and DSS to provide coverage for the protests, relying on section 83(4) of the Police Establishment Act of 2020. I made sure I shared drafts of my letters with Comrade Sowore for his input and approval. The police responded by confirming that two Deputy Inspectors-General of Police, all Assistant Inspectors-General of Police in all the zones and all Commissioners of Police in all the states have been designated to offer protection for the protests. They demanded details of the protest venues and also requested for a meeting to discuss the modalities. Given my background, my services were rendered pro bono and without any condition to the protests. With the response from the police, my task was half done.

So I reached out to Comrade Sowore and we both agreed to furnish lists of some of the venues for the protests. This to me was the way to go, at least to ensure that the protests were peaceful and well coordinated. I did a letter to the police wherein I stated SOME of the venues of the proposed protest. I then took time to consult with other known Comrades, the Nigerian Bar Association and some Civil Society Organisations. This was meant to coordinate the process and guard against confrontations between the protesters and the security and law enforcement agencies.

I received a WhatsApp message from Damilola Adenola introducing himself as the representative of Comrade Sowore who would accompany me to the meeting with the police. Upon further consultation with other Comrades, we thought it best to have a virtual meeting with the police, in order to have wider participation and cut costs of traveling from Lagos to Abuja for everyone. Comrade Sowore then forwarded to me the names of representatives of the Take It Back movement to attend the meeting, which eventually held on July 30, 2024. At the meeting, we made it clear to the police that it would be a peaceful outing, if the police is able to nip in the bud the emerging trend of hired thugs who were going around the cities, especially Lagos, to threaten citizens from exercising their fundamental rights.

With the meeting, it became clear to the police (or so it seemed at the time), that the organizers of the protests were not miscreants and unknown persons and entities. This should help to douse the fears being expressed in certain quarters that the protest was being organized to destroy and loot. Of course apologists of the ruling party went to town with my letter, accusing me (falsely though) of setting up the South West for destruction. They reasoned that once no single state from the South East was mentioned, then there would be no protest in that region and indeed all other areas not mentioned.

They began to circulate this falsehood in all their WhatsApp and social media platforms, purely for the purpose of raising ethnic bias and to get the people of the South West to back out of the protest. When we look back into the history of Nigeria, we would see that the struggle for Nigeria’s independence was coordinated from Lagos and the South West, so too most students union struggles like the Ali Must Go, Anti-SAP protests, anti-military protests, June 12 protests and Occupy Nigeria protest. The Yorubas in particular have a rich history of determined resistance against all forms of injustice and oppression, and they don’t discriminate in this regard, even if it is against one of their own. So you see a Wole Soyinka opposing an Olusegun Obasanjo from being appointed as United Nations Secretary-General, you would see a Gani Fawehinmi as the most notable critic of an Olusegun Obasanjo President. I then began to wonder the origin of this new set of rabid and intolerant generations of government loyalists in the South West, who see any and everything only from the pristine of ethnic alliance. The focus has always been on the issues, not the person, his tribe or his faith. I was glad however that they were all ranting on empty vessels as nobody reasonably ever took them seriously.

On the eve of the protest on July 31, 2024, news filtered out that the Lagos State Government had obtained an order from the Court to restrict the protests to Gani Fawehinmi Park in Ojota and the Peace Park in Ketu. How will citizens in Badagry, Epe, Ikorodu and other locations travel to Ojota just to protest? I knew that the government was baiting for trouble. Not stopping there, certain persons who claimed to be traditionalists announced the celebration of their traditional Oro festival to coincide with the August 1 protests and when added to the machete-wielding thugs going round the city, there would likely be some confrontation. I therefore made a personal appeal to the protesters to streamline the plan and to limit the protest to just one day or at most three days. Comrade Sowore was quick to reach out to me that I should amend my statement so that it would not confuse their supporters, a request which I gladly obliged him, since my appeal was personal in the first place and my intervention between them and the police had been concluded.

And the protests commenced on August 1, 2024. The turnout was massive, the spread was unprecedented and the support was overwhelming. Suffice to state it that the government was thoroughly rattled, especially with the outcome from the Northern part of the country. The response was then to sponsor thugs to disrupt the protests, especially in Abuja where buses were dropping anti-protest protesters at the same venue of the main protest. By afternoon of August 1, the protests had turned violent in some locations in Kano and Borno States, with recorded cases of mass looting and destruction of property. Some deaths were already recorded and it was escalating. This surely was not the intention of the organizers of the protests (or so I was made to believe), the concomitant effect of which would mean that the protests wouldn’t last ten days. I made a statement, commending Nigerians for their peaceful conduct and urging the police to observe acceptable standards in handling the protests.

The protests eventually entered its Day Two on August 2, by which time, it was manifest beyond any doubt that trouble was brewing. We had cases of further looting of warehouses, confrontations between supporters of the government and the protesters and cases of looting of the property of private persons, such as the woman who complained bitterly that before she got back from the protest venue, her shop had been looted by her fellow protesters. I then made another personal appeal to the protesters to call off the protests and embrace dialogue with the government, based on their charter of demands. I specifically requested that they should vacate the protest grounds so as not to give room for the violence that was brewing, as the protests had gotten out of control, especially in the Northern states, where some protesters were seen waving the Russian flag.

READ ALSO: Protest: Police arrest 27 for defying curfew, looting in Plateau