Akindele AbdulQayyum Olalekan
SIR: Exactly two weeks ago, protests and demonstrations evoked across almost every major cities in the country. Through the days of the peaceful but later hijacked protests, the president remained hushed. Need I remind that the death of Jimoh Isiaka at Ogbomosho, Oyo State in a very coordinated and peaceful protest did not meet the teeming protesting youths in good faith? Albeit, that was the most peaceful protest the nation had ever witnessed. Subsequently, the protest began to take various kinds of magnitudes. Had the president addressed the apoplectic and fuming crowd of protesters then, we would not have been here. All he did was replace the SARS with SWAT. Emmanuel Macron of France visited the family of the young slain teacher in France recently within 24hours of the incident. What stopped our president or at least say the vice president from physically grieving with the family of Jimoh Isiaka? That gesture probably might reassure Nigerians of the presidency’s humanity.
On Thursday, October 22, at exactly 7pm, the president addressed the nation! Did he really address what needed to be addressed? The president commiserated with the families of the police officers lost to the violence but chose to evade those of the courageous soldiers of good governance gunned down in different parts of the country, most importantly Lekki Toll Plaza, Lagos.
The salient message from the president speech: the youth should hustle for the N-POWER job that pays just #30,000 monthly or venture into agriculture. The international community got a stern warning. Get all the fact before you talk or keep shut. On the protest, Mr. President clearly said nobody should protest against the police. Everybody knows that military men take order only from the Commander in Chief through the Chief of Army staff.
As Senator Shehu Sani posited “you ask for speech, you got the speech and now you are speechless”. Nigerians are speechless having listened and read what our president said to us after almost every major city in the country went on fire. I read the president’s speech three times trying to convince myself that the president wisely commiserated with the families whose children were lost to the protest but then, I was disappointed.
Where do we go now? Everyone should go back to their activities and act like nothing happened? Let me use few quotes from the many left for our consumption by Martin Luther King jr.; “our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter”, “in the end, we remember not the words of our enemy but the silence of our friends” and “love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend”. To every politician out there, remember “we must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools”. My fellow youths, we are still very much formidable as a force but let us use power correctly and rightly. What next after Buhari’s speech?
- Akindele AbdulQayyum Olalekan,
akinscoat@gmail.com
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