So, what next after EndSARS?

WE are going to live with the aftertaste of the recent EndSARS protests for a long time. As a matter of fact, the agitations that led to the protests have not been properly addressed and Nigerians are not oblivious of that. We have been regurgitating the usual rhetorics and continue to force the causes of the protests into an already jam-packed closet of nation’s maladies. The causes of EndSARS are still alive; they are smouldering because the protests have resulted in deeper mistrust of the authorities.

Last Saturday, that’s October 31, some people called into a live radio programme in Oyo State and swore that they were policemen serving in the various divisions of the police in one of the South West states. The callers were anonymous, and for obvious reasons this is understandable. The callers had also listened to a voice earlier played by the presenters of the radio programme, which they said was the voice of a serving police officer that called them sometime before the commencement of the day’s show. The recorded voice claimed that thousands of officers and men of the Nigeria Police Force were suffering the same fate as those Nigerians who took to the streets to legitimately demand a reform. Among other things, it lamented that the force is underfunded, the personnel grossly underpaid and that the morale in the force is so very low.

The excerpts from the voice showed that policemen, after training at their tattered, unattended training schools, still buy nearly everything with which they work: their uniforms, boots/shoes; berets and other accessories, by themselves. The policemen are simply unleashed on the society like newly-hatched snakes in the wild. They are to fend for themselves if they survived birds of prey and sundry predators. It seems to me that they are even condemned to the fate of the confused zebra, Marty in the movie: ‘Madagascar’. When naive Marty’s eyes were ‘opened’ by some criminally smart penguins plotting their escape from the New York zoo, the zebra said in his sullen state that he did not know if he was “a black man with white stripes or a white man with black stripes.” That is the confused state of Nigerian policemen as we speak.

The anonymous callers into the programme corroborated the assertions made in the audio and added that the policemen on the streets were mere victims too just like the hordes of Nigerian complainants. They said highest take home pay monthly as salaries and emoluments of Sergeants (Sergeant Major) were not more than N62,000 and other tales of woe. They however did not support the excesses of the SARS unit which sparked the unrest. They blamed it all on the leadership hoodoo Nigeria has become synonymous with. They swore that if their Ogas had it better, it would trickle down.

In the end the 22 policemen that lost their lives in the crisis that followed the EndSARS might not be among those that might be indicted at the end of the current judicial panel hearings. The government has exhibited undisguised desire not to tackle the real issues. At best, the government appears to have abandoned the festering leprosy and is very busy meddling with superficial ringworm.

The resultant mistrust and lack of confidence in the government stems from its prevarication about what to do with the result of EndSARS and the shooting at Lekki. The Army has been going back and forth, speaking from both sides of the mouth on the shooting. The Army seems to be following the many versions of the Lekki story of the same event as shamelessly dished out by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State.

The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN) has added a cruel angle to it all when he said that there was the possibility of hoodlums in army fatigues being the people that shot at Lekki. The lean confidence of the people in the government is dying as the overall intent of the protests is being rubbished. The people and the police remain the victims.

Biden’s hard victory and Trump’s difficult loss

Americans have their strange, bizarre ways with things and they are all rolled up in one wacky Donald J Trump. Their, again, bizarre ‘electoral college’ had brought Trump upon them and the world in 2016 and soon afterwards, nearly every reasonable American wanted him out.

Going by the total amount of popular votes in the last general election in the US, it is obvious that the people don’t want him as their president anymore. But despite the obvious writing on the wall, Trump has remained a bull in a china shop. And, like a typical Nigerian politician, he has tried all the tricks in the book to truncate the election and remain in power, including inciting violence. Thankfully, institutions in the country are strong and have kept the raging president in check, unlike what obtains in Nigeria.

Sam Levenson in his hilarious first book, “Everything but Money” cited a Chinese observation of the Americans and gave the report thus: “Funny how you Melicans are. You bling tea flom China, blew it and say ‘here’s to you’ and you dlink it.” In other words, they steal and still confuse the victim. That is what a sulking Trump has caused as the world awaits the formal announcement of Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election.

It’s difficult for Trump to swallow because he scored well over 693 million popular votes but couldn’t get more than 213 Electoral College votes. For a popular vote which eclipsed the record set by President Barack Obama  in 2008, it’s enough for Trump to be sad, but it’s what it is.

At over 713.7 million votes,  Biden too has set a huge record and his electoral victory would tug at many things American. Again, it threw up the eternal question of the need for popular votes when all that is needed are just 270 Electoral College votes that far outweigh popular votes of tens of millions of Americans.

That question still remains a puzzle considering the fact that Hilary Clinton won the popular votes in 2016 but lost to the Electoral College.  Some have contended that this confusing college is the rigging machine of the American political elite. It’s hard to agree with, and it’s also hard to fault.

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