By Comrade Gbenga Olowoyo fcia fimpa JP
Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government-
Edmund Burke
The Nigeria situation has posed a very serious burden on the leaders and the led in recent time because of trial and error policy formulation, application and implementation.
From previous Administrations to the present one in Nigeria, the situation has continue to witness economic downturn, Policy somersault, hunger while poverty level of average Nigerians have snowballed into life of destitute full of delusions.
Policy pundits have observed that lack of sustainable economic policy tainted with absence of political will, strong visions and egalitarian missions have continue to be the root cause of Nigeria economic woes.
The resultant effects of directionless Policy are failures, retrogression, stagnation and hardships on the citizenry.
There is no doubting the fact leaders must emerge but when the led are offering solutions to the hydra headed problems , leaders must not treat these solutions with kids gloves.
From time immemorial, patriotic Nigerians have been advocating for the revitalisation of our moribund refineries and construction of new ones in order to tame the tide of dependence on imported products most especially Petroleum Motor Spirit (PMS) but Federal Government preferred imported products over locally produced ones due to their selfish interests and neo colonialist postures .
It is ironical that the conviction of government officials to imported products of PMS is unprecedented to the level that the cry of the concerned Nigerians are seen as a mere wolf cry.
We have warned that removal of subsidy by fiat without putting many things in place will spell doom for the country , we can now see where we find ourselves.
The #endbadgovernce# protest have left another bad taste in our mouths but with a serious warning , how best we can solve the present problem bedevilling the country is an unquantifiable question on the lips of concerned patriotic Nigerians.
For instance, it was a nauseating development when Federal Government agencies were trying to give Dangote refinery a very bad name, only God knows what they intend to achieve in the first instance , when such kite was flew.
When many countries both within African continent and around the world were romancing Dangote group to come and invest in their countries ; Nigeria government is bent in frustrating the Jinx broken by the establishment of Dangote refinery in Nigeria.
Nigerians are not happy with the way this country is being governed, the early nationalists did not bargain for lopsided governance, visionless policy, self centered individual that had emerged as Leaders, since we started democratic governance in Nigeria.
Our leaders need to search their conscience in order not to plunge this country into chaos and lawlessness because if the present Hardship and economic strangulation are not abated, then we are only postponing the evil days.
The expectations of Nigerians was that Mr President will urgently address the following issues in his nationwide presidential address which was predicated on the aftermath of #endbadgovernanceprotest#:
The expectations of average Nigerians and the organisers of the protest included but not limited to the following:
Return fuel subsidy ( which government is paying behind the scene)
Open all land borders ( which government secretly open to bring palliative rice)
Bring down electricity tariff
Reduce recently introduced taxes
The presidential address was quiet over these issues which effects cut across all strata of NIGERIANS.
Disappointedly, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu ignored 15point demands of the ongoing EndBadGovernance Protest, but rather than calling on organizers to shelve the action to avoid further destruction of lives and property.
In a National Broadcast on Sunday morning during the Day 4 of the hunger protest, Tinubu did not touch on any of the protesters demands he rather advised them to embrace dialogue.
The protesters had put forward what they described as a non-negotiable 15-point demand before the government for the protest to be called off.
The demands include:
•Scrap the 1999 Constitution and replace it with a people-made constitution for the Federal Republic of Nigeria through a Sovereign National Conference.
•Toss the Senate arm of the Nigerian Legislative System, keep the House of Representatives (HoR), and make lawmaking a part-time endeavour.
•Pay Nigerian workers a minimum wage of nothing less than N250,000 monthly.
•Invest heavily in education and give Nigerian students grants, not loans. Aggressively pursue free and compulsory education for children across Nigeria.
•Release Mazi Nnamdi Kanu unconditionally and demilitarise the South-East. All EndSARS and political detainees must also be released and should be compensated.
•Renationalise all public-owned enterprises sold to government officials and cronies.
•Reinstate a corruption-free subsidy regime to reduce hunger, starvation and multidimensional poverty.
•Probe past and present Nigerian leaders who have looted the treasury, recovered their loot, and deposited it in a special account to fund education, healthcare, and infrastructure.
•Restructuring of Nigeria to accommodate Nigeria’s diversity, resource control, decentralization and regional development.
•End banditry, terrorism, and violent crimes; Reforms of security agencies to stop continuous human rights violations and duplication of security agencies and enhance the physical security of Nigerian citizens.
•Establish a Special Energy Fund immediately to drive massive, corruption-free power sector development.
•Immediate reconstitution of the Nigerian Electoral Body @inecnigeria to remove corrupt individuals and partisan-backed appointments to manipulate elections.
•Massive investment in public works and industrialization will help employ Nigeria’s teeming youths.
•Massive shake-up in the Nigerian judiciary to remove cabals of corrupt generations of judges and judicial officers that continue denying everyday citizens across to real justice.
•Diaspora voting.
Non of the above demands are directly addressed in the presidential broadcast.
However , in the broadcast, President Tinubu admitted that there is socio and economic crisis in Nigeria when he declared that;
“I speak to you today with a heavy heart and a sense of responsibility, aware of the turmoil and violent protests unleashed in some of our states.
“Notably among the protesters were young Nigerians who desired a better and more progressive country
Unfortunately, Tinubu only used the speech to give promissory note which can not douse the present economic turmoil in the country.
Nigerians should arise and talk straight to Mr President that Nigerians are not happy, Nigerians are suffering, there is hunger in the land, frustrations abound among Nigerians, suicide everywhere, hopelessness among Nigerians, purchasing power is nil while multidimensionally poor are now over 188 million Nigerians.
Voices of reason
As a matter of fact, Mr President should heed to the clarion call of notable Nigerians and critical stakeholders in Nigeria project that have reacted to both the ongoing protest and the unfortunate presidential address of Sunday 3rd August, 2024.
Professor Wole Soyinka faulted President Tinubu’s national broadcast for not addressing the violent crackdown by security forces on protesters.
Soyinka expressed concern over the president’s omission of this critical issue, said: “I set my alarm clock for this morning to ensure that I did not miss President Bola Tinubu’s impatiently awaited address to the nation on the current unrest across the nation.
“His outline of government’s remedial action since inception, aimed at warding off just such an outbreak, will undoubtedly receive expert and sustained attention both for effectiveness and in content analysis.
‘’My primary concern, quite predictably, is the continuing deterioration of the state’s seizure of protest management, an area in which the presidential address fell conspicuously short.
“Such short-changing of civic deserving, regrettably, goes to arm the security forces in the exercise of impunity and condemns the nation to a seemingly unbreakable cycle of resentment and reprisals.
“Live bullets as a state response to civic protest – that becomes the core issue. Even teargas remain questionable in most circumstances, certainly an abuse in situations of clearly peaceful protest.
‘’Hunger marches constitute a universal S.O.S, not peculiar to the Nigerian nation. They belong, indeed, in a class of their own, never mind the collateral claims emblazoned on posters.
“They serve as summons to governance that a breaking point has been reached and thus, a testing ground for governance awareness of public desperation.
The tragic response to the ongoing hunger marches in parts of the nation, and for which notice was served, constitutes a retrogression that takes the nation even further back than the deadly culmination of the watershed #EndSARS protests.
“It evokes pre-independence – that is, colonial – acts of disdain, a passage that induced the late stage pioneer, Hubert Ogunde’s folk opera BREAD AND BULLETS, earning that nationalist serial persecution and proscription by the colonial government.
“The nation’s security agencies cannot pretend unawareness of alternative models for emulation, civilized advances in security intervention.
“Need we recall the nationwide 2022/23 editions of what is generally known as the YELLOW VEST movement in France? Perhaps, it is time to make such scenarios compulsory viewing in policing curriculum.
“The serving of bullets where bread is pleaded is ominous retrogression, and we know what that eventually proves – a prelude to far more desperate upheavals, not excluding revolutions.
“The time is long overdue, surely, to abandon, permanently, the anachronistic resort to lethal means by the security agencies of governance. No nation is so under-developed, materially impoverished, or simply internally insecure as to lack the will to set an example.’’
Also reacting , the chairman of the Alliance on Surviving COVID-19 and Beyond, ASCAB, Mr Femi Falana, SAN, charged President Tinubu to address the demands of the peaceful protesters.
He noted that the presidential speech delivered fell short of addressing the key demand of the protesters – a reversal of the policy of withdrawal of fuel subsidies.
Falana in a statement, also condemned the repression of the peaceful protesters, while commiserating with all those who lost loved ones in the protest.
He called on the government to set up commissions of inquiry to bring to justice to those responsible for the reckless killings.
The statement read: “If the government takes the fight against corruption to oil dealers and crude oil is processed in government-owned refineries, there will be no basis for fuel subsidy, which is induced by the importation of petroleum products.
‘’A positive response to the key demands of the youths to review the protesters could make them review their actions. Insensitivity to their demands can only provoke continued action.
Unfortunately, the Organised private sectors are groaning under the unfriendly economic policy of government, this has resulted in dwindling fortune of private sector operators.
In the words of the Director-General/Chief Executive of NECA, Mr. Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde, “With the current rate at which businesses are declaring losses, especially in the real sector, the nation might be in for another round of business shutdown.
‘’A combined loss of over N533 billion by just four businesses in the sector in the first quarter, H1, 2024 calls for urgent action.
“Following the protests and the national address by President Bola Tinubu, urging protesters to sheath their swords, the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association, NECA, has joined the President to urge the protesters to embrace dialogue, while also requesting the government to urgently address the seeming economic contradictions that are strangulating the organized private sector and stopping it from fulfilling its role as the engine of development.”
A team leader of the Bauchi and North zone #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria protest, Isah Zaki, expressed the team’s dissatisfaction with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Sunday nationwide broadcast.
The good governance activist said Tinubu’s broadcast failed to address the protesters’ agitations.
He said, “The president’s broadcast has not captured or mentioned any solutions to the demands of the poor masses.
“The broadcast did not, of course, address our demands and that of poor masses, Military intervention will escalate protests
Zaki added
The National Representatives in both green and red chambers must do the needful.
“That is what they are voted for, to speak on our behalf. In the President’s speech, it is clear that he does not understand our demands.
“Tell him the truth about our situation, or recall them back to vote for those that are equal to the task,” Zaki insisted.
Organisers’s position
Some of the organisers posited that:
“Without our courage and resolve to dare the odds, even this acknowledgement would not have happened. So far, we have demonstrated that a President is not greater than the rest of the country,” the statement read.
While taking note of Tinubu’s offer of dialogue, they noted that they were concerned that in the same breadth, the President had also ordered that the protest be suspended.
“In our view, the president cannot be approbating and reprobating at the same time. The President cannot offer an olive branch while at the same time holding a dagger to our throat,” the organisers said.
The statement from the organisers condemned the scenario “where thugs attacked protesters who had gathered for Sunday morning worship thereby injuring many.”
It added, “So we therefore call on all Nigerian youth and mass of the people to join us by 7 am at Gani Fawehinmi Park, Ojota, Lagos on (Monday) August 5, 2024, which is Day 5 of the protest.”
The Lagos protest had been considered peaceful by the state government, but a video on Sunday captured by Channels TV showed protesters being chased by hoodlums wielding sticks at Ojota a few hours after the President’s address.
A video also trended over the weekend showing the moment a protester addressing a journalist was hit in the head by a hoodlum during a live interview on the protest grounds.
The organisers also called the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress, the media, the Nigerian Bar Association and other patriotic Nigerians not to watch with arms folded what they described as attempts “to chase us out of the streets instead of addressing our demands.”
“As far as we are concerned, the #EndBadGovernance protest emerged from the suffering and frustration of ordinary Nigerian youth and people,” they added
Federal government should know that releasing ₦570bn to the 36 states to expand livelihood support to their citizens because of the economic hardship and toiture can not solve the problem on ground as well as distribution of rice and any grains for that matter because some State Governors will only patronise their cronies.
Unwarranted massacre of armless Nigerians must stop
In a statement issued and duly signed by the National President Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Comrade Joe Ajaero on Saturday 3rd August, 2024, stated that with unconfirmed reports putting casualties at 40+ in two days of managing the EndHunger protest across the country, we have sufficient reasons (backed up by reports and video clips) to call to question the professionalism of our security personnel as this represents nothing but MASSACRE of citizens.
He therefore, suggested that sincere dialogue should be deployed to urgently solve the lingering problems with the leaders of the protest organisers . In order, to put an end to the unwarranted massacre of armless Nigerians.
Time for Remedy
From the above standpoint, as a patriotic Nigerian, Federal Government by extension , President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should eat the humble pie and do the biddings of the suffering Nigerians in order to tame the tide of of the ongoing protest in Nigeria :
*Reverse the fuel subsidy removal, bring down the price of Petroleum Motor Spirit (PMS) to at least N200 that is the only thing that can have positive multiplier effects on Nigeria livelihood.
There is no household that does not make use of Petroleum Motor Spirit PMS for one thing or the other.
*Federal government should reactivate all the moribund refineries in Nigeria and give sustainable lifeline of operation to the Dangote refinery in order to eradicate dependence on fuel importation to Nigeria
*Also, Federal Government should reverse heartless increase in electricity tariff increase in order to make life meaningful to millions hapless Nigerians
*Electricity becomes unreliable and expensive to citizens when there is insufficient power. Relying primarily on expensive petroleum products which increases noise pollution caused by generators and machines, and oil mining can cause pollution at sea and in the air. Environmental pollution is equally costly to control
*Federal government should urgently open all land borders to make free flow of consumables movement possible in accordance with the spirit and letter of ECOWAS.
*Federal government should promote Public policies that can encourage long-term planning and investment, the only way to build resilience to economic downturns. Investing in education, infrastructure, research, and development.
*Countries can build stable, growth-oriented economies by doing so that was exactly what General Yakubu Gowon did as military Head of State . Our leaders should go back to history.
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There is no amount of policy rhetorics that will feed the hungry stomach if no concrete steps are taking to address these multiple tasks of ineptitude in governance.
According to the view of former Managing Director of NDDC Mrs Simi Semenitari, she said point blankly that President Bola Tinubu should address food inflation, lamenting that hungry Nigerians can no longer afford garri to drink once a day.
“The first thing therefore was the issue of food security. If people can even eat the anger can wane down,”
Semenitari, a former Commissioner for Information in Rivers State, said “Nigeria needs recalibration,” adding that somebody somewhere should see that things are going out of hand, President Tinubu should do something urgent about hunger and Hardship
Aged woman lamentation
An elderly woman participating in the nationwide #EndHunger protests in Sango, Ogun, criticised President Bola Tinubu for plunging millions of Nigerians into hardship and poverty, praying for deliverance.
“I came from Owode to join the protest. Is it acceptable for we elderly to be begging for alms to survive? We beg for alms to survive. I and my children are starving,” the woman lamented in a viral video recorded at the protest ground.
The woman decried unemployment among youths and bad roads.
“Our children don’t have jobs. Men and woman in Sango are unemployed. No jobs. All the roads are bad. (God) Deliver us from this government,” she stated. “Deliver us from Tinubu. What he promised to do are not what he is doing. He is suffering us. Deliver us from his government. Rice is unaffordable. Garri is unaffordable.”
If what will bring peace to the country is fuel subsidy restore it and bring the price down to (N195) one hundred and ninety five Naira.
Also, if what will bring down prices of foods and other consumables is opening of land borders, open them and let life goes on; these Killings and maiming should stop.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should check his back before it is too late
Afterall, an hungry man is an angry man .
Hunger , Hardship and hopelessness can provoke spontaneous revolution
To be forewarned is to be forearmed!!!
Comrade Gbenga Olowoyo fcia fimpa JP, a Trade unionist and industrial relations practitioner gbengaolowoyo3@gmail.com
08033570338