By Ademola Adebisi
The Nigerian state is again being taken through another tumultuous moment in her history, occasioned by the #EndSARS protest, which started on innocuous and pacific note, but which surprisingly, has plateaued on unimaginable monumental destruction of lives and properties, as a result of its seizure by miscreants and political foot soldiers of both the governing and non-governing elite, who grabbed the situation to settle political scores. Ignited on the note of protest against police brutality against the citizenry, perpetuated mostly and notoriously by the defunct SARS operatives, the protest unexpectedly also opened the lid for ferocious kick against bad governance and economic hardships which have permeated the land and which have manifested in brazen corruption, high inflationary rate, unemployment, underemployment, hunger, endemic poverty and penury. The fury that attended this massive expression of social discontents, indeed sent political scientists, historians and public affairs analysts back to their libraries to consult relevant literature to ascertain whether what was about to happen, was either a revolution or not, more so that the socio-economic ills or viruses that, for example, preceded the French revolutionary wars which started from1789 and lasted till 1799, are equally apparent in the contemporary Nigerian discomforting situation. But to me it seems that, having settled for capitalism and democracy, what the majority of Nigerians are yearning for, are not really a very radical ideological redirection, but the reform of all those areas of governance which have held them hostage to poverty, hopelessness and helplessness.
To the ideologues who might have perceived revolutionary path as the way to go, let it be said that, “true revolutionaries” in history, “who consider a revolution to be the most effective means for resolving class contradictions are far from denying however, reforms in principle and rejecting their progressive nature”. In any event and without allowing ideological and tactical polemics to detain us here, let me quickly bring to the front burner some of the agitations that cropped up in the course of the protest, which the political class seems pretending not to hear, going by their mute on those critical issues at this moment, but which require urgent address and redress if the tide of civil unrest is to be relatively stemmed.
One, a segment of the protesters complained about the huge size of the security vote being collected by the state governors on monthly basis. Because of its alleged mind boggling size, it was demanded and still being demanded that, the governors replace the opaqueness that has characterised the spending of this vote with openness and accountability to ascertain even its desirability or otherwise. Two, the questions have also been posed on the salary and allowances of the national legislators: how much does a senator or a member of the House of Representatives actually earn? Nigerian national lawmakers are said to be the highest paid in the world: true or false?
What is constituency allowance? How much is it? What is it supposed to be used for? Still more questions for the legislators: is it politically correct for legislators to be carrying out empowerment programmes thereby turning what ought to be public policies and programmes into private charity initiatives? Or, where does the dough for such programmes come from?
No doubt, while the legislators may stoutly rise to provide answers to these queries and may want to describe public notions on their salaries and allowances as misconception, it is better that the lawmakers deliberately seek a curtailment of their salaries and allowances, declare them openly in order to assuage a public that tenaciously hold the notion that, they are being pauperised on monthly basis by an institution that is supposed to serve and defend their interest. The situation is not also helped by the flamboyant lifestyles of many legislators made more insulting and provoking by some of them who flaunt their wealth on the social media and the television, a fly in the face of the hungry majority.
Three, the army of unemployed Nigerian youth has equally cried out that, Nigeria is not a land of equal opportunities. The message from the street is that, “man know man”, allocation of job slots (as it was seen in the obscene fight between the legislators and the Minister of State for Labour), to the most privileged, while the poor ones still have to painfully raise money to buy theirs, tribal connection and party affiliations, have denied many youth job opportunities and made worse by the preservation of juicy appointments for the children of the political elite.
Four, that while it is true that governments at both the federal and state levels have instituted social intervention programmes, many of the interventions have been described as tokenistic and tainted by discrimination on the basis of party affiliation as against the blind provision of such in the developed countries. Aside, there is also the loud cry against huge tax burden which the people have to bear and which does not reflect in government responsiveness to the provision of social services to the taxpayers. This it is said, has been made suffocating by the recent hike in electricity tariff and the price of petrol. The pervasive corruption and high level of insecurity in the country have also given impetus to the protest in the country; and above all the unaddressed issue of political restructuring.
While government has given assurance that it would work on the five-pronged agenda of the #EndSARS protesters, government should not take all the issues sententiously highlighted above lightly, for they not only resonated during the protest, they were of course, the combustion that gave the protest its furious conflagration. True it is that, the government had the progressive intention of turning the bread of the country to gold during it is tenure; true it is that the government had hardly set out when the price of the single commodity—oil— the country relies on for revenue started to decline from all time high of $140 per barrel to as low as $38 per barrel, with production also plummeting from about 2.2million barrel per day to as low as 1.4million barrel per day. However, the too obvious and brazen display of wealth by the political class particularly the lawmakers; the inequality and social hardships that have pervaded the land coupled with the insecurity and injustice that are almost ubiquitous, all combined, have made people to lose their temper and their resilience to continue to lend understanding to the financial predicament of this government. As it is, only a rapid creative and innovative social, economic and political agenda amidst the current social, economic and political recession, depression and regression, by the ruling party, that can attenuate this fury. We need not tarry any longer.
- Dr. Adebisi writes from the Federal College of Agriculture, Akure, Ondo State.
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