Planned Nationwide Protest: Nigerian Security Operatives – shameless pawns in hands of criminal elements in Abuja

I just read mouth agape with incredulity about the police warning against
planned protest scheduled for February 5 and 6 by Nigerian popular singer
Mr. Innocent Idibia aka Tuface.
In advanced societies protest remains the only way to send messages to the
elected representatives. Those who hold elective posts are supposedly
answerable to the electorates and the only way to reach them is via
protests when a particular policy becomes unpopular with the people
especially if it is such that brings hardship to the citizenry.
There is no denying the fact today that the APC-led government has failed
Nigerians who now wish a return to the good old days when the former
ruling party held sway. Life then was much better with food aplenty to eat
but today the reverse has become the case with prices of goods, services,
and food skyrocketing with every passing day.
Food is no more available in the Nigerian markets and wherever it is
available the cost is prohibitive thus making it well-nigh impossible to
live in that part of the globe. The resultant effect is crimes of varying
degrees particularly violent ones.
The best way to react to the obviously sad situation in advanced societies
is to embark on a protest, government’s reaction to such planned protests
is to provide security and send representatives to the venue and listen to
the peoples’ grievances.
I am compelled to write this piece in reaction to what I just read in the
dailies that the Police in Abuja has issued a statement warning Tuface
against the planned protest or face the full wrath of the law.
Wait a minute! Is that report true? If yes, who in the world gave the
warning? Who is to do whose bidding? Is the people of Nigeria who elected
a government which the police as an institution is answerable to or the
police to do the peoples’ bidding? This sickens me to the stomach in no
small measure.
Over here in Europe and indeed in other advanced societies, there is no
legislation against protest when the people have grievances to tender. No!
I have never seen it happen anywhere! That is the only way the people can
communicate their grievances to the powers-that-be especially as things
continue to deteriorate marvelously as it is in Nigeria today.
There is frustration in the faces of many helpless Nigerians as a result
of the ineptitude and sheer incompetence of the government of the day.
Everything has nose-dived abysmally and has, in fact, assumed an alarming
crescendo with many homes broken and torn apart.
Suicide hitherto unknown in Nigeria has taken the centre stage with no
hope in sight that things will ever get better as major economic policies
continue to fail marvelously coupled with damning reports from
supranational institutions such as IMF, ADB and the UNICEF.
Under the existing circumstances, the best way to register one’s
displeasure is to put the government to a serious task and this is best
done via protest to make their representatives sit up as it is done in the
civilized world.
The aggrieved and pauperized citizenry have neither resorted to violence
or arms struggle but a simple protest to get the attention of their
representatives yet the regime in Abuja is reportedly saying ‘NO’ and have
in fact rounded plans to deploy tanks and guns in the streets like in
totalitarian regimes  to bar Nigerians from protesting against the ills of
the day which is their constitutionally-guaranteed rights.
I wish to call the regime in Abuja to order through this medium that they
are not lording over animals but civilized Homo Sapiens and that
totalitarianism is no more fashionable does not exist again anywhere under
the sun.
The Executive Order on travel ban signed by President trump which did not
go down well with many Americans sparked off a mass protest and American
security forces did not roll out military tanks to subdue the people and
was eventually upturned today by a federal judge.
It is the right of Nigerians to protest the hard times and Buhari and his
men should be told in no uncertain terms that Nigeria is now practising a
constitutional democracy and could never be hushed into silence or subdued
by force of arms.
When the former military President, General Ibrahim Babangida was in power
Nigerians came en masse to demonstrate against the Structural Adjustment
Programme of that regime.
It is time Nigeria learned, toed the line of the advanced world and
respected civil rights. Security agencies must not allow themselves to be
used as pawns by a few disgruntled criminal elements in Abuja simply
because money has changed hands to the detriment of the hoi polloi.
I say yet again, it is high time the Police headquarters in Abuja reversed
their statement and allowed the planned protests to hold to enable the
aggrieved citizenry speak to their elected representatives. Anything short
of this without doubt breeds or prepares ground for an imminent civil
revolution.
All in all, it is a thousand pities that Nigerian security operatives have
shamelessly become willing pawns in the hands of criminal elements in
Abuja who are bent solely on personal aggrandizement and this ought not to
be after all.
*Iyoha John Darlington, a social activist, political analyst and public
commentator on national and global issues wrote from Turin, Italy.