A matrix of misfortunes

Segun Gbadegesin

OPALABA is troubled. My friend is on the verge of psychological collapse. As I listened to the heart-rending tone of his voice over the phone, it occurred to me that we have a lost cause on our hands. I felt a gush of melancholy through my being.

“They told us that Nigeria is divinely ordained. But why has it been pleasing to the Divine Being to make his ordained nation a matrix of misfortunes?” my friend asked in a tellingly miserable voice.  With some intimate knowledge of Opalaba’s steely heart and the stubborn masculinity of his persona, it was clear to me that what he had gone through was a heart-melting experience.

“Is it that bad?” was my faint response, making sure that I didn’t provoke my friend’s well-known quick temper.

“It is more than worse, pal. I witnessed wet-e first hand. That was a child’s play compared to this senseless wasting of young lives and massive destruction of property. In the whole of Yorubaland, I never saw anything close to this even during the civil war. Who cursed us?”

I appealed to my friend to avoid going into the easy route of the occult. “No one cursed us. We are responsible for whatever happened or failed to happen to us. What is important now is to identify what we did or didn’t do that got us into the deep hole in which we find ourselves. We can then determine to make amends and move on. Or not. It will be our prerogative. We are familiar with our story and with the story of our peer nations, where we are and where they are. It’s up to us to change our story.”

Opalaba agreed with me. “This was what I appreciate in the initial approach of the youth. Having borne the brunt of the burden of police brutality over the decades, they sought to change our national story. With their skills in communication technology, they mounted an effective campaign that moved from the national to the global scene. From Washington to Paris, from London to The Hague, from reputable media houses to modern social media, from Nollywood to Hollywood, #EndSARS became the viral buzzword. Political operatives from Governors’ offices to the National Assembly complex joined the chorus. And for the first time in a long time, the youth became a national symbol of a long-sought unity of purpose. And they made us all proud.

“The federal government didn’t have any good reason to ignore them. They were insistent on their demands but not disruptive. They were leaderless but well-organized. They had good evidence for the reasonableness of their demands. The Vice President was the first national officer to express solidarity with the protests. He had been there before. Back in 2018, he had expressed horror at the apparent impunity of SARS agents and had promised a total reform. It is therefore understandable that he threw his support behind the demand to end SARS.

“Government agreed to meet the demand and promptly issued a statement that scrapped SARS. In addition, it convened a meeting of stakeholders that included civil society organizations and prominent members of the EndSARS movement. A communique of that meeting disclosed that government agreed to the other five demands of the movement which included release of arrested protestors, justice for deceased victims of police brutality and compensation for families, judicial investigation of all cases of police misconduct within ten days, psychological evaluation and retraining of disbanded SARS officers before redeployment, and an increase in compensation for the police. State governments, starting with Lagos State, followed promptly with the inauguration of Judicial Panels of Inquiry. The EndSARS movement, though leaderless, was on course to achieve a first in terms of an unprecedented rush of government action on its demands.

“But it was not to happen. The depth of the mistrust and distrust is enormous. Promises made in the past were never kept by governments over the years. The latest was in 2018. Protesters were unwilling to be fooled again. So, they continued street protests. It was a patriotic motive on the part of a corps of idealistic young professionals with global experience of best practices in governance, determined to correct all societal ills and lift their nation up towards a state of perfection.

“Perhaps this noble motive would have achieved great results. But there were two predictable interruptions.  First, the motive and the persistence ran into conflict with the mindset of a political establishment that is too sensitive with regard to its standing and paranoid about any perception of weakness. For how long can it tolerate indefinite peaceful protests without risking its degeneration into calls for a violent revolution? From our past experience, even if there wasn’t any such threat, the reality of such a mindset was enough to trigger the reaction that we saw on October 21, 2020. Nigerian governments have never disappointed.

“Second, however, the nobility of the motive of EndSARS movement and the acclaimed standing of its members plus their decision to have a leaderless movement, also ran into conflict with the motivation of a different and opposing group. They are also youthful and vibrant. And they also have their grievances which are not less legitimate. They are skill-less and hopeless. Of the 60 percent youth population that Nigeria boasts of, more than 40 percent belong to this group. These are the neglected and abandoned members of our urban and rural enclaves.

“It is this second group of youths that many irresponsible politicians engage during elections only to abandon them thereafter. They are the so-called hoodlums, touts, urchins, gang members, and cultists. Always looking for what to do, wherever and whenever they see “action” they jump in without being invited. You could argue that with the EndSARS action, they didn’t need any invitation. It is their cause too. It just isn’t this second group’s perception of action that the initiators of the movement had in mind.

“It is probably true that the government would have moved against the movement anyway. But the various interventions, including imposition of curfews, were justified by appeal to the destructive approach of the second group. As it became clear, however, it was the peaceful group, the one with the best motive and the noblest of intentions that received the heaviest end of the state cudgel. It was the one that bore the sharpest edge of the state sword. Think of Lekki Toll Plaza.

“A conspiracy theory has it that that outcome wasn’t a mistake, that the hoodlums were state-sponsored, and therefore, despite their attacks on innocent citizens, they couldn’t have been the target of state security attack. The truth value of this conspiracy theory need not be positive. What is clear is that hoodlums took a much greater advantage of the military intervention to wreck extraordinary havoc on the populace, targeting both public and private assets. Without the presence of police or other security agents, it was a field day for thugs and gang members. Hell broke loose!

“Is that the end of the movement to end police brutality? Has one youth group upended the nobility of the other group’s intention? Does the baby of prospective good governance get thrown out with the birth water of reckless hooliganism? This my worry. Will I live to see the Nigeria of my dream that the youth have made their priority project?”

As I listened attentively to Opalaba, I was moved to tears. It isn’t just his dream. It is mine too, and I think I can speak for my generation as well. It takes the generation of my grandchildren to have a real chance to remake Nigeria and now it appears that they have been silenced.

“But there is hope my friend”, I assured Opalaba. The youths haven’t given up. They have just retreated to refocus. If the recent notice of a national youth conference is authentic, I am sure we haven’t seen the end of this matter. With what we have come to know about their generation, their foundational knowledge skills, their sheer determination to shame nay-sayers, more is yet to come. We keep hope alive.