HOW INTOLERANCE FOR DISSENTING VOICES AND PROTESTS IS FOSTERING INSECURITY IN NIGERIA

By Lucky Okoedion

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

[Remarks on the first anniversary of the Alliance for Progress, 13 March 1962]”

― John F. Kennedy

It is human nature that when you do not give people a peaceful outlet to vent their frustrations, they will take the violent one. It is only a matter of time. A nation that does not heed this advice will keep on fighting wars against insurgents which are its own people. Different forms of insurgents will keep springing up from different angles as is the case currently in Nigeria. Instead of staging a peaceful protest to agitate for more control of crude oil resources, citizens will acquire arms and begin a militant group to fight for their right when they are made to think that peaceful protests are either not tolerated or they lead to nothing. Instead of staging a peaceful protest for more control of mining resources, they will start militant “bandit” groups in Zamfara and other such places in the north. Instead of staging peaceful protest for freedom to practice their shiite kind of Islam, they MAY begin their own kind of “Boko Haram” when they discover that they will continue to lose lives when they embark on such protests. Even if the president is not intelligent enough to know this, he should employ advisers who know better. I do not want to assume that the president knows the consequences of these actions or the actions of his appointees who are brutalizing protesters and persecuting opposition voices, and yet does not care whether the country ceases to exist after his tenure. Hence, it is safer to assume that this has continued because the president does not know or due to age, he has forgotten the implication of these actions.

History is decorated with beautiful stories of nations that have survived for centuries despite many wars fought against foreign forces that have tried at different times to conquer them. But there is no single case of a nation that has survived a protracted war against its own people. Not even one. Hence, at the current rate of fighting against opposition and waging war on different fronts – war against civilian protesters, war against opposition political groups, war against critics and journalists, war against secessionist groups, war against Boko Haram, war against bandits, war against shiites, war against Naija Delta Militants, and maybe very soon – war against unemployed graduates, and war against unpaid workers, this country Nigeria is on a path of inevitable collapse unless there is a drastic halt to this intolerance for dissenting voices and protests.

The last major civilian protest that has been tolerated in Nigeria was led by the leaders of the current federal government administration of Muhammadu Buhari and his associates like Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu when they were still in the opposition. Though they experienced some form of resistance from the then incumbent government that is now in the opposition, yet the protests were allowed to hold without the massive arrests that have been used to make protests impossible in Nigeria of today. So, by and large, though civil liberties were not as good as we desired before the current government came into power in 2015, they (the civil liberties) were at least in existence and tolerated. But it has taken the current administration of Muhammadu Buhari less than 4 years to make protests impossible. Such that as at 2019, the usual protests that followed increment in fuel pump prices in the past completely disappeared. The brutal and most times fatal iron-hand police treatment given to protesters between 2015 and 2019 ensured that embarking on a protest against this current administration is synonymous with embarking on a suicide mission.

This is how deep our collective humanity has sunk, and consequently how fragile our national unity has become.

It is most painful that this is happening in a government led by Muhammadu Buhari because he has been one of the greatest beneficiaries of civil liberties in this country. How he has turned around to become the major antagonist of the same liberties is a huge dent on his legacies (if he has any left). 

An excerpt from a Premium Times publication of August 6 2019 titled “Buhari’s govt, major beneficiary of protests, tightening the noose on freedom” tells the unfortunate story:

“Ironically, for 12 years before he finally became president, Mr Buhari agitated for a better Nigeria with highly objectionable comments. He was never arrested for them because they were protected by the Constitution.

“The then opposition leader once urged Nigerians to vote along religious lines, and also advocated the implementation of Sharia law across the country, against Nigeria’s constitution-provided secularity. He also took to the streets on several occasions to protest perceived wrongdoings of governments.

“After losing his first attempt at presidency in the April 2003 elections, Mr Buhari launched a series of demonstrations across the country to make a case for a purported stolen mandate.

“In one of the protests on September 25, 2003, in Kano, the police tear-gassed Mr Buhari and other members of his then-All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) Progressives. The attack was blamed for the death of Chuba Okadigbo, Senate President from 1999-2000, a few hours after the protest was quelled.

“The protest was not deemed treasonable or an act of terrorism against the Nigerian state, and Mr Buhari was not arrested.

“After losing again at the 2007 general elections, Mr Buhari remained a staunch opposition leader against the administration of Umar Yar’Adua, even though they were both of the same hometown. He made several controversial statements on several radio and television appearances, but was never taken into custody.

“In 2011, Mr Buhari ventilated again when he lost to Goodluck Jonathan. For the next four years, he would lead other opposition elements to protest different issues of interest to them, from fuel price hike to alleged electoral fraud.

“Mr Buhari also hailed the Arab Spring that swept through the Middle East from 2011, seeing it at the time as mandatory for the long-suffering masses in the affected countries. He also encouraged similar agitations in Nigeria as an effective means of nudging a complacent government. He urged a revolution through the ballot.

“A few months to the 2015 election that brought him to power, Mr Buhari again took to the streets with other members of the then opposition All Progressives Congress (formed in 2013) to demand an improved economy and a free and fair poll.

“Critics say the president is now curbing the same freedoms that brought him to power.

“They are clamping down on Nigerians who take legitimate exception to their government — something that Mr Buhari and his associates in the APC did for many years,” said Yinka Odumakin, a civil rights activist and politician. “They are telling us that their own protest was better than others’.”

“They were patriotic with their own protests but people now protesting against them should be seen as terrorists, something that is clearly against democratic norms,” Mr Odumakin said.

“Mr Odumakin was Mr Buhari’s campaign spokesperson during the 2011 elections, and he said they issued several statements that took the government to cleaners at the time without being brutally violated by state agents.”

The clamp down on opposition, dissenting voices and civil liberties is just about taking the nose dive into the cancerous stage of becoming institutional – the stage where it becomes extremely difficult to solve. This is evident in the recent move by the National Broadcasting Commision (NBC) where it declared that ‘You will be punished if you insult, President, Governors, Senators, others in Nigeria’. 

Chibuike Ogwumike, zonal director of the NBC Lagos office, in his letter to newsmen, seized the opportunity to warn against messages that ‘insult’ Nigerian leaders. His words: “Monitoring activities indicate that in the recent time, some broadcast stations have abdicated their editorial responsibilities such that guests and callers on programmes abuse and insult leaders and those in authority freely and without caution.

“To denigrate our elders and leaders in abusive terms is not our culture. We respect our leaders as a positive cultural value. “We expect Broadcasters, especially anchors to show professionalism in the handling of programmes such that guest or callers that exhibit such tendency are professionally handled. “The recourse to abusing, denigrating and insulting the President, Governors, MPs and other leaders does not show us as cultured people.”

But the trap is that most politicians consider criticism, opposition or dissenting voices as insults. Are we gradually approaching a stage where it will be considered “blasphemy” for citizens to insult their elected public servants and thus would be sentenced to jail or beheaded for it? We cannot tell. But one thing is certain, as intolerance for protests and dissenting voices increases in the society, insurgency increases. It is time for those who are interested in the continuous existence of Nigeria to call president Muhammadu Buhari and his power-drunk appointees to order.

Lucky Okoedion is a believer of a new Nigeria where true democracy and effective governance is practiced. He writes from Benin City. And can be reached on +2347038820118 .