It was a sad day, and I was seeking a way to redeem myself. I was sad for the innocent kids murdered in Yobe, just a few days after 20 girls were abducted in Yobe, by the bloodthirsty insurgents. I accepted an invitation to hang out with friends, which turned out to be a wrong move.
They are from Borno, from the heart of the tragedy-wracked towns and villages, and thus my sanity was challenged by their lectures on the genesis and complexity of the radical ideology that evolved into this irrational insurgency. I was dejected, and emotionally defeated!
Earlier that day, I listened to the President, and his indirect confession to defeat in another of his promises to “prosecute war on terrorism” had dampened my spirit. His ‘threat’ to withdraw the soldiers stationed in Borno to prove a point to Shettima is a really dumb attempt at wisecrack, because I don’t think Shettima was actually being ‘ungrateful’; I think he was only crying out loud, that the soldiers are exposed to undermined danger, yet ill-prepared.
Of course, I’d be similarly devastated and even suspicious, aware of how trillions of naira were obviously cornered in Abuja without me. The Borno issues were badly handled in that chat. They gave away Mr President’s wicked sense of humour. For that, he shouldn’t make any more effort to be funny outside his bedroom. There’s no honour in chuckling at a funeral!
Yet Nigerians remain in their bedrooms and offices tweeting at perceived injustice and incompetence, and expecting such cyber-venting to change the system. What I realise about us is, nobody wants to take the first bullet. Everybody just wants to queue behind you.
We need to stand together as citizens, with our demands harmonised in this quest to reclaim the country.
My experience in organising #OccupyNigeria in Minna has taught me a lesson – you need more than private citizens for an orderly demonstration of rage. The politicians, who have successfully scammed us, knew this. Which is why they created so many forums and associations to remain powerful – for, divided they fall. So we need unions, and all those dormant NGOs in Nigeria misleading, and, sorry to say, swindling, the West in the name of human rights advocacy.
Out of frustrations with the massacres in the North-east, without a convincing assurance of an end soon, I reached out to some people for a possibility of a protest, to occupy, as they say, in the streets of dysfunctional countries, this headquarters of political failures; there is no better time to face these remorseless clowns at Three Arms Zone, Abuja.
But I’m betrayed by NGO owners and members of civil society organisations who, in the name of rights advocacies, receive huge grants to cover the miseries and protect the sanctity of the people they abandon in times of crises. Anytime you attend social events, you hear well-dressed Nigerians say, “My name is X, our NGO is into peace-building…”
In which country? I think we need a list of all NGOs and civil society organsiations in Nigeria with sources of their funding in order to expose their frauds. Nigerians are very angry right now, and if we must take to the street, we need to harmonise our demands – to check possible violence. We’re all stakeholders in the campaigns to understand the complexity of Boko Haram, and this witnessed defeat of our troops.
In this dilemma, we saw a public notice calling Abuja residents to converge at Unity Fountain on Thursday (27th February), just beside the city’s biggest hotel. I couldn’t authenticate the source of the unsigned broadcast. But as much as I’m wary of involvement in knee-jerk reactions to unpopular government (in) decisions, I thought it should be an opportunity to meet and discuss strategies to adopt in getting the government’s attention.
There was fear, the usual, especially when the police announced that “all forms of protests are banned in FCT” on NTA. And for that, they intercepted us, threw a canister of tear-gas at us, but we defied the threat. At the end, they had to arrest us and had us crammed inside their van. This is the beauty of our democracy – government of the powerful. But we were released, for the obvious reason: the fear of technology, the social media sensationalism, which, they have realised, can ruin their reputation and career with a tweet!
Though the protest ended too soon, with hope of converging again when our strategies are better harmonised, it introduced me to the patriotism of fellow Nigerians in spite of the armchair critics to whom fault-finding is a permanent job. Whoever initiated the Unity Fountain protest is a genius – the intent was quite understood there, on realising that it’s to embarrass the guests, from across different countries, coming to Transcorp Hilton for the Centenary jamboree. One mystery remains, even at the venue nobody claimed authorship of the broadcast that had us converged. Which means the initiator didn’t participate. May God save us from us!
