OPINION: Protesters Of The North
By Lasisi Olagunju
They did what locusts do to farms. They spared almost nothing. They ate road slabs, pilfered roofs and stole ceilings. They attacked and looted at least one mosque – and at least one church. They hammered concrete slabs and squeezed out of them iron rods for sale. Well-paved roads suffered their anger because the beauty of the asphalt offended them. In a library, they stole dustbins and spared books. Trash is valuable, book is worthless. They attacked public and private buildings; they looted doors, wrenched windows off their hinges and stole installed tiles. They are the perfect proof of what the unbuilt child will ultimately do to well-built structures.
The sickest, scariest part of the world is our North. In his inaugural address on January 20, 1961, American president, John F. Kennedy, issued a warning which talks directly to today’s Nigeria, particularly the North. He said: “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich”. The out-of-school children in our North are in multiples of millions; they are the death of Nigeria and its elite. Their hunger unleashed a maelstrom of destruction on every part of that region last week, forcing the various states there to declare 24-hour curfews. The round-the-clock curfews remained active at the weekend but the rampaging genies stayed stubbornly out of the bottle. Some of the protesters were said to be with Russian flags on Saturday in Kano. What do they really want?
“The children that came out did not even demand anything other than to break offices and attack police,” Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State told Arise News on Thursday night. I don’t think that truth is the truth. In Daura, they did zanga zanga and massed at General Muhammadu Buhari’s house. They went with a message. In Sokoto, they carried leaves, put their anger on the boil and massed at the palace of Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar. They went there with a message that threatens democracy.
Russia ‘rules’ in Niger Republic and media reports said some protesters in Kano were seen waving Russian flags. What is incongruous in that? Were we not told repeatedly that there is no recognized boundary between Niger Republic and Nigeria’s border communities? The NSCDC in Kano at the weekend complained that aliens, particularly Nigeriens, were among arrested protesters in Kano. I read that and asked what was wrong in citizens of Niger Republic lending a helping hand in bringing down their brother’s Wall of Jericho. Where were the security forces when the government of Niger Republic publicly interfered in our elections in 2019? Or have we forgotten that two governors from that country — Issa Moussa of Zinder and Zakiri Umar of Maradi — were part of those who came and campaigned for Buhari in Kano in January 2019 for his reelection? The alien governors came, wore APC attires, and members of the APC presidential campaign team in Kano celebrated and feted them.
Today’s president of Nigeria. Bola Tinubu, was the national leader of the APC when that brazen misadventure happened. I can’t remember hearing what he said against it. Abdullahi Ganduje, Tinubu’s party chairman today, was the Kano State governor who hosted those aliens. The Nigerian government celebrated the meddlesome interlopers in photographs wearing Pepsodent smiles. Thoughtful Nigerians loudly complained against that foreign interference; opposition PDP chairman, Uche Secondus, asked INEC to sanction APC and Buhari for that misadventure. “They came with monies and mercenaries to influence elections in Nigeria,” Secondus shouted. INEC promptly replied him: “Their presence does not violate the constitution.” Case closed – that time. Now, the Nigerien chicken has roamed back home to roost. The ruling people and their agents should just shut up and lick their wounds.
The president made a broadcast on Sunday (yesterday). He spoke with the chord of Lizard who fell from the top of the Iroko tree and shook its head: If no one praises me, I praise myself. Did he say anything on the painfully sore soles of Nigerians? If he did, I missed it. He will probably address that in his next broadcast.
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Someone should tell the president that what he said on Sunday was what the Hausa man calls dogo turenchi (long grammar). The broadcast showed that Tinubu’s understanding of what Nigerians are going through is zero. He spoke about the #EndBadGovernance protest being some people’s political agenda. If there is indeed an agenda, it must be secondary to the real rebellion of the belly going on. My people say malevolent medicines don’t work unless believable stories are woven round the spell (ejo ni aa ro fun oogun ki o to je). There would not be popular support for the protest if there was no general anguish in town. The hundreds on the street are (were) those who had the strength to go out; the millions who are at home are even more trenchant in their protest. What they say are not prayers. The president needs to go out, feel the street and do another broadcast.
If what you eat is exhausted, you go for what is classed as taboo. That proverb sounds like what a leader of the French Revolution, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, said about the last option of the hungry: “When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich (Quand le peuple n’aura plus rien à manger, il mangera le riche).” From one end of the street to the other, a scary video shows children of the North blasting slabs fittingly placed on gutters, scavenging for iron rods. They did it with uncommonly calm fury, daring the state.
A government ICT centre in Kano was invaded and stripped of all its assets. Children without basic education can’t appreciate computers and their possibilities. There is a lesson there for our policy makers. First things first.
Kaduna’s Governor Sani said more: “If you look at the developmental indices, I made it clear to everyone last week that as far back as 2016 in the northwest part of Nigeria, there was nothing but kidnappings and banditry. We have found ourselves in this problem because of the lack of seriousness of the leaders, including myself.” That was a very candid admission of complicity in the tragedy that has unfurled in the north. Sani added that everyone in northern Nigeria who held a leadership position, including the business community, should reflect on why over 70 percent of adults are financially excluded, why 65 percent of people are living below the poverty line, and why 70 percent of Nigeria’s 18.3 million out-of-school children are domiciled in the north. “That is why, if you look at the protest today, most of the states that participated are from northern Nigeria…” the governor said.
That Kaduna where Governor Sani sits was where the maker of the North, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, sat and made a very sound difference in the lives of his people. Sardauna’s biographer, John Paden, says when Bello was a mere councillor in charge of the Sokoto districts, he ensured that “education was the key.” When he became the premier, he held on to that conviction that the system must run well in such a way that “there was no resentment from below.” Paden adds: “The Sardauna felt that if this system broke down, the whole of the society would break down.” What the Sardauna feared has happened. The system he built has broken down. Governor Sani said so. The fury on the streets of the North is the confirmation.
On Saturday, Borno State governor, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum, expressed shock over what he called the involvement of children in the protests in his state. He said over 95 percent of the protesters were under 14. To him, most of the children were unaware of the reasons behind their actions. He said the situation was “astonishing”. “It’s astonishing to see a six-year-old child carrying a placard. They must have been directed by someone.” Many of the children, he said, were not from Borno State. So, where did they come from? Were the unknown ones from Niger or Chad? The governor needs to tell us.
How many children of Borno do Borno and its governor know? Some people’s blessings are as limitless as the waters of the Atlantic. Children of northern Nigeria compete with the sands of the desert in matters of number. Sometimes you are tempted to ask what music they listen to in that very expansive clime?
Queen of songs, Onyeka Onwenu, died last week; God bless her sweet soul. With King Sunny Ade in 1989, Onyeka did a duet on life and the need to plan it well. They labelled the album ‘Wait For Me.’ The song suggests that if your loin is virile enough to sire a million children, your hands must be strong enough to make billions to feed them. You can’t have “plenty children” and offload their care to society. The duo sings that a nation can’t have sad families and still be a happy country. They sing:
