There is this story of an old man who stole a chicken, and a mob of angry youths were after him. In the process, they met another old man along the road. The elderly chicken-thief called on the old man to look into his bag “with the eyes of an elder” to see if there was any chicken inside it. The old man looked; he sure saw a chicken but using the “eye of an elder” he told the angry youths that he did not see any chicken! The elder thief was spared. Both elders knew that the chicken was in the bag, but the elder thief had used body language to plead with the intervening elder to save his neck.
The intervening elder decided to diplomatically save the thief from the angry youths. I know he would have, later, advised him to sin no more. That was in the days when elders were elders; when they earned respect and were indeed respected. Today, as an elder, I am trying to save the government from the angry youths. No chicken is missing. However, what is missing is MUCH MORE than a chicken and all of us are adversely affected by “the thing” that is missing. But as an elder, I wish to intervene, to save the government from itself and from the youths. However, this is subject to, as our people would say, ‘ma onye agwalu kwe’ (That is if the person you are talking to will listen).
Even the Biblical stranger in Jerusalem knows what happened across our land last month; how a group of disciplined, passionate, and coordinated youths told the government, and even we, the elders, that enough is enough. Somebody had classified the protesters as those who went to eat, those who went to the party, those who went in search of husbands and wives, those who went to showcase their skills, those who went to market their products and those who went for the main thing. We know how the soldiers came in by powers beyond the control of the governor. We know how those who dined and wined with thugs mobilised or encouraged the thugs (while other stakeholders looked the other way) to “intervene”.
Now to the worrisome, disturbing developments. The government, directly and at times by proxy has decided to clampdown on the alleged EndSARS-ers because according to Femi Adesina, the law MUST take its course
We know how things turned awry and resulted in massive, mindless, and criminal rioting, looting, arson. We know that the financial cost of the looting was huge, as much as N5trn as estimated by NECA. Those who went for the looting included the hungry (who took one or two cartons of indomie) the petty thieves (who looted goats from someone’s truck), the foolish ( who looted tractors (easily traced) and those who destroyed the busses which they would use or the government properties, which would be repaired by public funds), major thieves (who looted with lorries) the professional thieves (who went for medical and specialised items) bare-faced criminals (who looted guns), the angry and vengeful (who targeted Politically Exposed Persons and their interests).
Now there have been some sundry developments since then. These include the “with-immediate-effect establishment” of various judicial panels, the production and marketing of the parochial regime change narrative by the “north”, which had said they had no issue with SARS (and yet, 120 anti-SARS petitions (out of 585 nationwide) have been fired by its citizens, who have been protesting stridently over insecurity), and the statement by Adesina as to how fatherly PMB was or is, which minimised the “damages” to lives. The Lagos panel has thrown up the most absurd developments. It made me remember Fela’s song: “you be thief… I no be thief; you be amu-robber, I no be amu robber”.
The soldiers who had denied ever being at Lekki on that day eventually admitted that they were there on the invitation of the Governor, (who had earlier declared: it wasn’t me); that they shot only blank bullets, that nobody died and that they were so over-stretched (for a nation at ‘peace’) that the COAS authorised the deployment of trainee-soldiers! They called the governor a liar! They also deposed that they had not done anything about the Lekki affair because nobody had petitioned them! And by the way, Lagos has just presented its budget and 100 percent of the amount budgeted will not be enough to rebuild Lagos, and that is those tangible things that can be rebuilt. Sad indeed.
However, how do we rebuild those intangibles like the damage done to the Sanwo-Olu brand and the emergent high level of trust deficit? There have also been some developments across the globe including the continuation of the extended and expanded protests in Hong-Kong( since June 2020) and Belarus (which has lasted 3 months) as well the resignation of President Merino of Peru within 5 days of assuming office, after a police crackdown resulted in JUST 2 deaths. Here, the government has certified about 76 deaths, but we have been arguing whether it was by soldiers, policemen or the new citizens in town, the hoodlums or maybe, they committed suicide.
Now to the worrisome, disturbing developments. The government, directly and at times by proxy has decided to clampdown on the alleged EndSARS-ers because according to Femi Adesina, the law MUST take its course. Suddenly, we have become a law-full nation! People are being arrested, with permission just sought to detain Eremosele for one extra month. Thankfully, the magistrate wisely granted him or her bail. Passports have been seized in the ‘normal course of business’ travels have been restricted and accounts have been frozen by the eagle-eyed CBN, which has now surpassed the DSS and allied bodies in intelligence gathering. The CBN said those affected were terrorists!
So, we now have two certified terrorist groups in Nigeria: IPOB and the EndSARS Movement. While the first is laughable, the second is outlandish and unbelievable. And to think that I have 4 terrorists (members of the end-SARS generation) in my house! I shiver!!! Some people have been taken to Court including high-flying Pastors while Femi Falana has been reported to the International Criminal Court. Perhaps, they are also among the terrorists! I wonder why they did not include the various governors who participated in the protests.
Now, what is my elders, proverbial, advice to our government? I have investigated the bag; I did not see the missing chicken, but one thing is obvious: the government is consciously fishing in troubled waters. Our people say that it is foolhardy to add pepper to an eye ointment; that is not advisable to touch the tail of a lion-pikin or even that of a sleeping lion; that the fact that a snake appears not to bite is no reason to use it as a rope; that the fact that the fireplace is calm does not mean that the fire has gone off.
And finally, they say “atoba uto, si wepu aghugho” friendships should be deception or hitting below the belt. The government has done the opposite of these things which our elders have advised that they should not do. In this instance, the government is behaving like the rat, that will be biting you and blowing some air into the wound at the same time to assuage the pain. It has promised to give with the right hand (just promise) but has already started taking with the left. The government asked the youth to “kool-temper” and that all would be well. Unfortunately, all has not been well. In a situation in which our Vice President is calling for the rebuilding of trust, the government of which he is a key member is destroying the trust of the largest proportion of its citizens.
So, where are those who asked the youths to pipe down and give the government time to address their grievances? Our people say that when you hold a warrior on the ground, you extract everything you want from him. And that anyone stung by a bee takes flight at the sight of a tsetse fly. The youths wanted to extract everything from the government, but we begged them to relax and see what the government would do.
Now they have relaxed, and we have seen what the government has done. And when next this kind of situation occurs, we know what will be, all because we are behaving as if we have won the war. No government ever wins a war with its people when they are determined to do war with the government. Examples abound. The government should not push its luck too far! I have spoken, as an elder!
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