A former Minister of Education and Nigeria’s former Ambassador to Germany, Professor Tunde Adeniran, speaks to DARE ADEKANMBI on the lessons the government should learn from the #EndSARS protest, among other issues.
WITH the #EndSARS protest which rocked the country recently, Nigeria was said to be close to having its own ‘Arab Spring.’ Do you agree with such position?
I don’t quite agree in absolute terms. The #EndSARS protest began as a well organised demonstration against police brutality, particularly SARS, and along the line, some other factors of concern to the demonstrators were added to it and they were still on course. There was really no focused leadership that could really coordinate and ensure they remain focused. Maybe due to that and some other factors, some hoodlums infiltrated them and hijacked the entire thing. So, the protest, at that point, could no longer be directed towards the overall goal and the purpose for which it was started. The protest was initiated by concerned youths, highly educated, exposed, patriotic and above all focused and concerned about the future of the country. But unfortunately, having been hijacked, there was no way it could go in the direction that was originally conceived and as such, equating it with the Arab Spring will be inappropriate in the sense that those who were managing the Arab Spring, from A-Z, did not allow it to be hijacked. That was why they were able to get to the level they reached. But in this case, the #EndSARS protest, having been hijacked by hoodlums, the ultimate end happened to be anarchy. The initiators themselves could not be spared in the process because the hoodlums could hardly differentiate between the protesters and those who were being protested against whey they unleashed their violence on the society.
What lessons do you think those in authorities should have learnt from the protest?
A lot of lessons ought to have been learnt and I hope they have been learnt. But out of these many lessons, I would just identify four. One, for too long, we have been patching things up: things we knew were not good for the health and development of our country and for good governance. One of these is the issue of SARS brutality which is a metaphor for so many other things that are not right within the country which we have been parrying over from time to time. From some of the petitions coming up now, you can see that over the decades, the things have been piling up and are not things that happened just yesterday. This has revealed how we have not been as concerned as we ought to have been with certain critical matters that could affect the growth and development of the country and the wellbeing of the citizens.
The second lesson is the fact that the army of the young people in the country is a potent force that we dare not ignore. They are very strong and are there to be tapped. If you tap them positively, they are going to yield positive results. If you abandon them recklessly and disregard them, the negative will be the consequence. In other words, as a vibrant force in the country, in terms of both population and their capacity, Nigeria must learn to utilise them positively. The third lesson that needs to be learnt is that Nigerians are not as bad as we assume they are. If you can see young Nigerians coming together, regardless of sex, tribe or religion, opportunity, to say ‘we are all victims and our society is a victim,’ this is a lesson that indeed Nigeria should be thinking more of the oneness of the country rather than the things that divide us. In other words, our interest should always be seen as one, such as we want to have good governance, development, peace, justice and brotherhood, which are things we can really get once we overlook those things that divide us. This country is a powerful country and when we do things that we really need to do, we will achieve a lot. The youths have shown us that.
The fourth lesson, which is a very important lesson to learn from what really has happened, is that there is no substitute for good organisation, good structure within the country and, of course, having a focus. In other words, where you will go, do not allow the negative propensity of some of our people to impede the progress that we have in mind for the country. I am saying this because, by the infiltration of the hoodlum into the protest, we could see that something that was good and positive ended up being a disaster. So, in this country, we have wonderful and great attributes that will make us the greatest country on earth because God endowed us with what is best in terms of human and material resources. But when we don’t utilise these things positively and we allow some negative forces to interfere with where we are supposed to be going, then of course we have disaster on our hands. These are the key lessons I believe we ought to learn from the events of the last three weeks.
Possibly the sore point during the protest was the shooting of protesters by soldiers. Initially, there was back and forth between the headship of the army and the Lagos State government over who invited the soldiers. The army has now come out to say they went to Lekki on the invitation of the Lagos State government. What do you make of this?
What I can make out of it is that something indeed actually went wrong. But I am not going to rush and hasten to guess what actually went wrong. I would rather wait until the outcome of the investigation going on is out. I have read quite a number of reports in the media and some programmes on electronic media seeing people offering all kinds of postulations in terms of what could have happened or did not happen. As far as I am concerned, we should let the outcome of the ongoing investigations be made public. We will be compounding the problem by all the speculations in terms of the possible scenarios and all that. We should wait for the truth to be unearthed. The investigation should be very thorough and those in charge should leave nothing out. Everything should be transparent; everything should be exposed. In the process, those who have information should readily come forward, including those who have access to the information from the satellite because we now live in a global village. God forbid, if anything negative happens to Nigeria, it will rub off negatively on the West African coast and beyond. If we are doing fine as a country, it will also have an effect on them as well.
So, for the Lekki incident, let us wait and encourage those who are investigating to make haste and should not push the Lekki incident to the background, because it seems as if they are more [interested in] investigating some of the petitions about SARS. There is an African proverb, which is a Yoruba proverb too. It says that when trees fall on one another, we remove the one on top first before going further. In this case, investigation into the Lekki shooting has to come first because it is the most dramatic and most challenging incident.
How do you think government should address the demands tabled by the demonstrators? I know the SARS unit of the police has been pronounced disbanded, but the list of demands includes the call for good governance and increase in police salaries and welfare.
From what I read in the media, I understand that President Muhammadu Buhari accepted the five-point demand made earlier when the Lagos State governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, met with him. I understand that quite a number of things have been added since then. My own position is very clear on this. Whatever the demands are, I believe there is the need to sit round a table to talk about the time frame for the implementation of some of the demands. Government itself also needs help and the #EndSARS demonstration has given opportunity, although it is a very painful one, for the government to examine itself to now see that some of the things they have been trying to do. The youths are now concerned about and what those things being done right now. It will help government to now have a checklist of those things, look into them one by one. And, of course, in the implementation process, they should look at the demands as a national emergency and not just something that should be carried out by the government itself. Sometimes, it puzzles me when some state governors behave and talk as if these things concern the Federal Government alone. It concerns the entire country from local government to the national and of course those of us who are not in government also have a role to play to ensure that the demands of the youths are met because those demands are in the overall interest of not just the future of the youths, but also for our own security and wellbeing of all the citizens as a whole. Imagine the youths not just saying they should scrap SARS, but that the authorities should also look into the welfare package of policemen so that they can better serve the country. If this is done, the police will realise that they are also loved and regarded as human beings doing legitimate duties. And when the ordinary person sees the police on the road, he will not see them as an enemy but as compatriots and fellow Nigerians doing their own work. It could also lead to a situation that whenever we see anyone in uniform, we have sufficient regard for them as a people who are putting their lives on the line for the rest of us. And when those in uniform see the civilians, they know that that is the essence of the uniform they wear and the weapons they carry. In other words, there is need for a positive re-orientation that will make everybody know what their responsibilities are and of course what the rights and privileges are. This will make for a better society.
Do you see the potency of the power of the youths as demonstrated during the protest shaping the 2023 elections?
I pray the potency of the youths will affect the 2023 elections. I pray that even before then, it would ginger reforms, including INEC reviewing and making sure it goes fully electronic. Technology determines things. When we have technology at work, we will not be having the rate of violence we are experiencing. The army of thugs that desperate politicians recruit out of the pool of unemployed youths will no longer be fashionable. I expect that the vibrancy, capacity and power of the youths will have impact in the election and also alter what has been chaining them, weakening their capacity to seek not just relevance, but to also be appreciated by their intellect being utilized. Ideas rule the world. But the way we are doing now, we are ignoring that. But when the youths are better organised, they will, with their force, put an end to the type of allocatory politics of the self-serving political gatekeepers who have been doing so much to ensure that they only select those that will serve as their errand boys and serve their selfish interests. Rather than looking for the very best who will help in utilising the resources to lift the country up. So, the trajectory will certainly change form the way things are. Things can never be the same again. The only thing that can allow things to remain the same is if the youths now relent and do not push any further. If you do not push further, you will lose the grounds that you have gained. So, they need to push so that they will hold onto the grounds gained and also move further. When progress is made as a result of the force of the youths, it is in the national interest. It will help the older generation and the generations to come. Then we will appreciate the fact that we cannot be running the government of the 21st century with the mindset of the 20th century. So, we need to deploy the resources of the youths and the youths should not wait that since they have made their point, government will begin to implement. They have to stand by and continue to monitor positively. One of things the youths did during the protest which impressed me and goes to show that they are not just intelligent, but also how committed they are, is the fact that they were holding on to the national flag and singing the nation anthem during the protest. Nobody can be more patriotic than these youths. I feel proud and happy that there is a future for the country with this behavior of the youths.
The Federal Government is contemplating a bill to regulate the social media because of the belief such platform fuelled the protests and made for untruths to be spread quickly. What is your counsel for government in this regard?
My counsel on this is very simple. By virtue of my training and my work, I know so well that if care is not taken, the social media could provoke warfare. In fact, it could even lead to a third World War. At the national level, it could lead to a warfare and deeper crisis. At the same time, the government should not attempt to regulate the social media or pass a bill that will regulate it. What they need to do is very simple. Those who are IT savvy, more than any category of people, are the youths. Government should use this opportunity to [engage] them in a round table as part of negotiations. Social media is wonderful. It can catapult a country to the highest height. It could destroy a society, create problems for families and government. Government should also look at how to use the positive sides of the social media to develop the country and promote peace, justice and progress, while making sure that the negative effects are not utilised to destroy us. You can be sure that those young ones will come out with ideas as to how to go about the matter. Slamming a blanket ban will not bring solution. But calling them to a roundtable will also provide a opportunity to get their own input into what concerns everybody and they are also interested party in the matter. Government will be showing that it is listening by doing that, not claiming to have exclusive possession of wisdom. So, whatever comes out of such roundtable will be seen as a collective wisdom of all Nigerians about how to ensure the social media is used to help the country and not destroy it. It should not be a situation that will keep the government on one side and the people on the other side.
One point that needs emphasis regarding the need to intrinsically control the social media without undue governmental control is that when parents, teachers, civil societies, leaders of faith-based organisations, community leaders, traditional rulers and political leaders take it up as a challenge to ensure proper orientation of all categories of people in the society regarding the value and dangers of social media, its positive control would be more effective than any sweeping legal hammer by the government.
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