Just like the untold story of the August visitor, the birth of the #EndSARS protests across the nation has in no small way portrayed the country in the very best way it could. Good or bad, the Nigerian masses are winning the game between them, and an oligarchic goverment under the guise of democracy.
Truly, just like the Vice President did, the government should apologize to Nigerians, but the apology should also be extended to the many issues on the lips of the downtrodden, poor, and vulnerable masses whom the government has not only toyed with, but also pushed to the extent that they have decided to turn back and tell the government that this country belongs to neither the oligarchic Fulanis, the self-centered Yorubas nor the Mic-offing Easterners.
Just like the late Adegoke Adelabu Penkelemesi once said, “the parts of our country which before knew no corporate unity has started to think and feel like one.”
From #EndSARS of both the West and the East to #SecureNorthNow from the hand of Boko Haram and banditry. Can Nigerians do it better than this when united?
It is a rebirth of the Unity Festival. We have all decided to ‘sórósoke’ and move away from the ‘gbénu é soun’ generation that keeps toying with our collective intellect and future.
Quoting Penkelemesi further, he said, “it is these revolutionary movements, these insurrectionary outbreaks, there Blitzkrieg operations, these Renascent upsurges, these rebellious uprisings, these Universal Risorgimentos, these merciless, massive, elemental waves, weeping the continents, submerging all countries, deluging governments, intoxicating peoples and races, and ploughing their irresistible ways into Destiny that compel us to become a people of Renascent; to ASSERT, to Demand, to SNATCH, and if necessary, to SMASH our way into freedom (good governance).”
So what changed from the agitation before the country gained independence? We have been pushed to the backseat. The persuasive generation plunged us all into this unbearable situation where our lives are not safe in the hand of SARS, and their accomplices in the police force, and to the bad road network that gulped billions of naira from our treasury. We all have a hand in this directly — and indirectly.
The privileged in the society think they can conveniently ride around their exotic cars to either oppress the social status of the common man, and make them think as if they don’t know how to work. Not knowing that, it is a sign against the law of God, as the Great Lion of the West noted.
Nigeria of a few years back is not that of the present. Rather than get better, things have gotten worse. Is there any hope if we do not naturally demand what belongs to us rightfully?
The government should know that enough is enough.
Akintunde Yusuf Akinloye
Ibadan
