Before you go out and protest* 

DAMILARE EBENIZA

Damilare Ebeniza studied Political Science and International Relations in Nigeria, Benin Republic, and France, with a research focus on Nigerian history, economy, and foreign politics. He has experience as a conference interpreter and external relations management across Chad, Niger, Mali, and Guinea Conakry, for governmental, regional and international organisations in West Africa. He is an analyst for West African Democracy Radio in Dakar, Senegal and actively contributes to critical dialogues shaping the region’s socio-political landscape. Proficient in French, English, and four additional non-Nigerian African languages, he embodies a commitment to cross-cultural understanding and effective communication. He can be reached via comment@businessamlive.com 

The Saturday proceeding August 1, as I walked into my preferred shopping mall in Lagos to buy my provisions for the month ahead, everyone in the mall seemed to have an opinion about the [on-going] national protest and the current economic hardship. These conversations between the shop goers were so serious that it interrupted my reading of “The miracle of Mindfulness” by Thich Nhat Hanh. Since the book was about being mindful of what was going on, I decided to pay attention to the discussions around me. No book I could have read could so colourfully bring home to me the fact that, indeed, THESE ARE HARD TIMES.

I have made multiple adjustments to my spending habits to cope with the new economy, yet what I heard in that shopping mall is unique, not just for what was said. The loud desperation conveyed by the conversations is such that talking about anything positive in our country today may be considered a display of an arrogant insensitivity. 

However, as hard as this may be, it is at this moment in the life of our nation that we must maintain the necessary distance from what we are going through now and draw from the last drop of resolve to power through this phase. Yes, the global economy is going through a tough time. Yes, other nations around us have it worse. Yes, our current situation is not unique. None of these, however, should be used as arguments to silence legitimate complaints of the people. In fact, these complaints serve as an important feedback mechanism for the government. It is up to the government to explain to the people, in a language they could understand, what the government is doing about the current situation, how long this would last and what would the reward for the sacrifice be. In this regard, the Tinubu Administration has not done enough.

During a discussion [penultimate] week on a regional radio station based in Dakar, Senegal, I said the Nigerian economy has never been stronger than it is now. My view is that our economy is not broken. What is broken is our politics. This broken politics may, however, take the economy down with it, if not fixed on time.

Why do I think the economy is not broken? Well, look at our country’s history. There was never a time in the history of this nation when Nigerians with a lot to lose and in the position to know are betting on this economy with their wealth like now. You may have heard about investors leaving. But until Nigerians, not the government, can prove that this is a safe place to invest large amounts of money, serious foreign investors would not come. You also may have heard of economic forecasts by international organisations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank or prize winning economists. What anyone with a basic knowledge of economic history knows is that when it comes to predicting the future, economists do not necessarily know better than the rest of us.

So, is the national protest the way to fix our broken politics? 

To see how compromised authority has been in this country, to fully appreciate to what degree we have allowed corruption to weaken our government, think for a moment about the following questions. Could some yet to be known men or women organise a protest in an emirate led by Usman dan Fodio, a Kingdom led by the Oni, the Oba of Benin or the Olu of Warri? Did the great Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu hide while leading his people? What have we become?

We are a country in which the people who cannot show their face have succeeded in mobilising the attention of our government that it appears nothing else matters today. How vulnerable is this for all of us? This nation has known the likes of Gani Fawehinmi, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Wole Soyinka and Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti. Those men and women were activists during a military regime without the internet. The strength of their conviction was such that their activism was not a quest for virtual popularity.

I have not seen a press conference explaining why the poor lady selling at Oyingbo needs to risk the loss of the goods on which she depends for survival because some have an idea about how to fix our problems. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu may be, in your view, the worst president in Nigerian history, this should not be a licence for anyone to disrupt normal lives of ordinary citizens. I have heard some Nigerians blame the last flawed elections and the role of INEC as the reasons for this unrest. The Yoruba would say, ‘Ti a ba nsun ekun, ka ma ri iran,’ that is even if we are crying, the tears should not blind us. 

Are we saying protest is a legitimate way to decide the outcome of an election after the Supreme Court’s decision? To those who think electoral malpractices are only a Nigerian thing and everything else should be suspended until we fix it, it may help you to know that Donald Trump was not the first elected official in the USA to ask an electoral officer to find him a few hundred votes so that he could win the state.  The New York Times published an article on February 11, 1990, titled: “How Johnson Won an Election He’d Lost”, which opened with this paragraph – ‘a study of Lyndon B. Johnson provides new evidence that the 36th President stole his election to the United State Senate, in 1948’. The details of how he stole the election in a country with more than 150 years of democratic experience is superbly detailed in a book by Robert A. Caro, titled, “Means of Ascent”. Yes, the last elections were not perfect, but to justify a protest by corrupt elections is to confuse the aspirational with the available. 

Those who are elders in this country should assume responsibility for where they have brought us. Our government has lost control to a point that the great people of Nigeria would listen to anyone, even people of questionable characters so long as it serves to undermine the government of the day. That is the most urgent, most serious, and persistent security threat to this nation today. Nigerian citizens have the right to protest, yes, but it is a right that comes with responsibility.

Protest is a legitimate way for the masses to communicate to established authorities their grievances. But the single loudest message conveyed by popular protests is “we are done talking”; that something more than intelligence and controlled sentiments is required to bring about the outcome we seek. It is an exercise of collective power without the corresponding collective or individual responsibility. Rarely in human history is any long-lasting positive change achieved through such means. 

The idea that some unknown folks should be allowed to organise a protest without the possibility of a return address for ensuing damages should scare any right-thinking Nigerian. I agree with Pat Utomi when he said he did not sponsor the national protest. In fact, to his credit, I believe he does not even know who the organisers of the protest are. He cannot speak authoritatively of their character let alone vow for their integrity. However, that someone as learned as Pat Utomi is ready to support a protest whose organisers he does not know is a symptom of everything dysfunctional in our nation. Go to any Nigerian village and ask the people to come out and suspend the normal business activities. Those supposed uneducated Nigerians would at least ask you: who are you? 

The reason I found it hard to understand what Pat Utomi meant by “I support the protest but did not sponsor it” is that I am as ignorant as those ordinary folks in our villages. Some of us want to know why a Nigerian statesman would support something he believes to be a solution to our current problems but at the same time refuse to assume any responsibility for it? If Mr Pat Utomi seriously believes that protest is a viable solution to our current problems based on his knowledge of Economy or Politics, shouldn’t that inspire in him the urge not only to support the protest, but to sponsor, organise, lead, and therefore assume responsibility for it?

For anyone interested in a serious study of popular protests and the rejection of individual responsibility, I suggest the reading of a small book written in 1895 by a French polymath named Gustave Le Bon and titled: The Crowd: A study of the Popular Mind. This book,  among other things, puts the attitude of the organisers and their supporters in its proper context.

One of the key dangers of any popular movement is that a crowd is a device to hide personal responsibility, civil or criminal. No single man would go to a shopping mall or a palace and break in without thinking twice about the consequences. In a crowd, the inhibition that makes personal responsibility a salient constraint on destructive behaviours vanishes. As Gustave Le Bon put it so delicately: “An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will.”

For those who took part in the ENDSARS protest, many of you would recall the events that led to the regrettable October 20, 2020, massacre were not organised to end hunger. Nigerians were poor then, but hunger was not the reason some of us went on the streets. Still, that protest stretched our already weakened law enforcement institutions to a point that those whose business is crimes could roam free on our streets and loot shops and businesses owned by Nigerians like you and I. The few of the affected businesses lucky enough to survive the looting took many months to get to where they were before the protest. We may not assume responsibility for the looting THEN.

But if we consider the level of hunger and poverty in the land today, what happens during ENDSARS may, in the fullest of time, be child’s play. Do we want to assume responsibility for that NOW? 

Any well-meaning Nigerian, young or old, should think twice before joining a protest without the assurance that such a protest would be peaceful and that properties belonging to fellow struggling Nigerians would not be destroyed. Without this guarantee, a national protest should be avoided. Popular protests are like a nuclear weapon: its most effective use resides in the threat of that use. Once the bomb is detonated, our entire world may be transformed beyond our wildest imagination. Action for which one does not want to be held liable should not be carried out by responsible citizens. Good governance also begins with responsible citizenship.

To end this article, let’s conclude with a story about Adolf Hitler. On 30 September 1938, Neville Chamberlain of Britain, Edouard Daladier of France, Benito Mussolini of Italy all met Adolf Hitler in Munich to avoid the looming war. France and the United Kingdom gave Hitler everything he wanted, except one thing: war. Lacking the self-restraint required to avoid turning a victory into a defeat, Hitler launched the war on 1st September 1939. He did not just lose the war, it took the destruction of Germany to convince him he cannot win it. The organisers of the Nationwide Protest have already won. The whole nation cannot think or talk about anything else except this protest. This is a solid win on which to build serious national dialogue on how to fix our broken politics.

Would you take it? 

* This piece was written just before the nation-wide protests begin on August 1

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