How to end the #ENDSARS protests
If there is any political leader at any level who still feels less concerned about this raging #EndSars protests, then, such a politician must be too drunk to think lucidly or he is like the deaf fly that may go with the corpse to the dark underground. It would also amount to self-deception, if anyone of us thinks that the protests is just about the high rate of human rights violations and abuse which a number of police officers have been found culpable in.
There is a lot more to these protests than we are reading and hearing, and it would be dangerous to deny the fact that these youths and every Nigerian involved in these protests are not justified in their dissatisfaction with how Nigeria has been ran over the years.
Already, our political class has begun to deploy fast-cooked strategies in their attempts to quell the protests. Some of such could be the ‘possibly stage-managed’ attack on th governor of Osun State, the looting of shops, setting afire a public building in Osogbo, counter protests, etc.
The government deceives itself if it feels that these protests can be ended through quick-fix methods. Thinking issues through may have been one of the most difficult things to do by our politicians, but on this matter, they must think things through, they must sit down and brainstorm and they must be gradual in implementing those, well thought-out strategies.
It is easier to avert anger than to stop it, once it has been ignited. Like fire, it is wiser and cheaper to stop an outbreak of citizens’ anger than to extinguish the fire once it has started raging. Truth is, the people have had a full of inflation, insensitivity, incompetence, nepotism, insecurity, hunger, unemployment, corruption, sectionalism, unfavorable business climate, intimidation, and the numerous governance tragedies that Nigerians have had to endure for the past sixty years and more.
The rumor that the Army may soon be deployed on the streets to help in quelling the protests, had better remained a rumour. Because, a civil protest as this one had better been handled with the best possible civility possible, than risking a complete escalation into something we may not be able to control.
The protesters are continuing on their protests, more than one week after the IGP announced the disbandment of SARS. This should tell the authorities that the people have lost confidence in them. It doesn’t matter what they promise the people, but what is done afterwards. Majority of the protesters believe that the prompt disbandment of the SARS is a subterfuge to stop the protests, and one cannot blame those who believe so.
As at 2015 when the present administration came into office, a bag of rice was 8500 Naira, but today, the same bag of rice is closer to 40,000 Naira. How do you explain to families that your agricultural revolution is working when food prices are spiking?
Nigerian will be happier and it will be easier for them to return to their houses if food prices crash. Whatever the previous government was doing to keep food prices relatively stable should be borrowed by the present government. How do you explain any kind of logic to a man who is struggling to provide food for his family? If it means opening up the borders, open them up so that people can get food cheaper.
You cannot force the people to eat local rice, which incidentally is also very expensive, at about 26,000 to 30,000 per bag. Allow local rice farmers to compete with foreign rice importers and Nigerians will take a decision on which of the rices to buy. For instance, if local rice was say, 5,000 Naira a bag, while foreign rice is 36,000 Naira, the government would have been justified in its policy to raise tariffs on foreign rice, as a way of boosting local production of rice.
It would be a more reasonable thing to explain to Nigerians why their minimum wage can’t buy them a bag of rice, yet, our politicians live in the most ostentatious luxury, before our very eyes. The usual explanation that Nigeria’s economy is in dire straits, hence, the hike in petrol pump price, electricity tariffs, VAT, and a rash of increments that directly affect ordinary Nigerians, shows the government as insensitive and bland of ideas. Why push the stress to the people, while the leaders live in pomp?
The Nigerian security architecture needs total overhauling. Why do we retain service chiefs that have outspent their service years, yet insecurity worsens across the nation? Many people believe that these service chiefs are retained because of the part of the country they come from rather than as a reward for their competence. To assure the protesters that the government is serious about ending the protests, the nation’s security architecture should be rejigged.
We need to see our doctors, lecturers, police officers, teachers and other professionals receiving improved pay and our public institutions better run than they are presently. We need to see transparency in the implementation of government budgets. Why are our Police Barracks looking like disused poultries and pigpens, while billions of Naira is budgeted for the same purpose every year?
Why are our schools dilapidated and our hospitals ill-equipped, yet our politicians run to other countries when they have the slightest health issues? Let us see the government awarding contracts for the construction and equipment of at least one world-class hospital in each of the geopolitical zones of the country.
Why has our debts risen to astronomically in the last five years, yet the infrastructural developments has rather depreciated? Nigerians need to be convinced that our country is not being sold off or mortgaged by present leaders? What have these loans borrowed, especially, in the last five years been used for?
There are rumors that the DSS and some other agencies of government carried out and still carried out secret recruitment exercises which have mostly favored people from a section of the country. The president has to address this rumor and if it is true, direct the cancellation of such secret exercise and allow for an open process of recruitment which will allow the best applicants from across all sections of the country to be recruited.
#endincompetence
#EndSectionalism
#EndInsensitivity
#EndHunger
