Firestorms from the Streets…

Olusegun Adeniyi

In October 2019, I was in Prague, Czech Republic, at the invitation of ‘Forum 2000’ to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1989 ‘Velvet Revolution’ which brought to power then Czechoslovakia’s famous playwright and political dissident, the late Vaclav Havel. ‘Forum 2000’ was founded in 1996 by Havel (who died in December 2011), in collaboration with Japanese philanthropist, Yohei Sasakawa, and the late Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Holocaust survivor, Professor Elie Wiesel. So as scholars reflect on the 1989 ‘Autumn of Nations’—mass protests in several Eastern European, Asian and Latin American countries—an enduring lesson should be that there are no predictable outcomes to fires that start from the streets. I will come back to that shortly. 

We wake up in Nigeria today to the fear of a planned 10-day protest. With #EndBadGovernance in Nigeria as hashtag, and driven mostly by people on social media, the aim of the protests, according to the organisers, is to draw attention to the hunger and general economic hardship that most Nigerians now grapple with. As of June, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), food inflation had hit at an all-time high of 40.87 percent while prices of necessities are now beyond the reach of the average Nigerian. Anger on the streets is therefore understandable. But the fear that protests could be infiltrated or hijacked by hoodlums to loot and cause mayhem is also real.

I attended a Christian programme last week where the presiding cleric asked us to pray for Nigeria – routine in many religious gatherings these days. The pastor prefaced his call with a litany of the skyrocketing prices of essential commodities and the hardship being faced by most Nigerians. Despite all these, he added, “I do not believe that street protest offers any practical solution to our problems,” as he led us to pray for God to avert the protests. But with his prayer session over, one young man in the row behind me muttered, “The prayer is too late. Nothing can stop the protests.” He was audible enough for many of us to turn in his direction. “So, if you don’t believe God can change the situation, why were you praying so fervently?”, the lady beside him asked.

Apparently sensing that he could put himself in trouble, the guy left before the programme ended. Beyond exposing the faithlessness of many of the people who profess religion in Nigeria, his comment also helped me understand why there is so much agitation in Abuja. Perhaps there is more to the protests than some of us can see. So, while we await what happens today and, in the days ahead, let me also admit that nobody is neutral on this issue. There are six categories to which Nigerians now belong regarding the protest. In the first are those who want to send a strong message to the leadership akin to what is happening in Kenya from where they apparently draw inspiration. It doesn’t matter how many or few they are, members of this group will protest not minding the risks to their lives. The second category comprises opportunistic politicians who seek to profit from anything that will upend the current political arrangement in Abuja. This group may support with resources, but they will not venture out of their houses. Nor will any member of their families. In the third category are moderates who are simply disenchanted with the situation in the country and believe the system requires some form of shock therapy to necessitate a change of direction. The only thing the protesters will get from this group is ‘moral support’ which counts for nothing. They will not be on the streets. The fourth category comprises Nigerians who just want to get on with their lives despite the hardship, having resigned themselves to the fact that protests can only add to their woes and will change nothing. In the fifth category are the street urchins, the opportunistic criminals who wait in the hope of a confusion that would allow them to loot, maim and even rape. For each of these groups, there is a counterforce, the sixth category consisting mainly of those currently in power, especially in Abuja (and beneficiaries). To this group, the idea of a protest of any kind is ‘treasonable’. The problem with members of this group is that opportunism rather than principle drives their position which changes the moment they move from government to the opposition or vice versa.

We live in a country where people forget things easily so let me speak briefly on the last category. On 20 June 2003 (21 years ago), the federal government under then President Olusegun Obasanjo jacked up the fuel price from N26 to N40 per litre. Five days later, on 25 June, then Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) President (now Senator) Adams Oshiomhole, threatened a nationwide strike action if Obasanjo did not reverse the policy by the midnight of 29 June. When by 30 June the pump price had not been reversed, Oshiomhole declared a “total and indefinite” general strike. As Governor of Lagos State at the time, Tinubu received the protesters at Alausa and asked Obasanjo to accede to their request. And for more than a week, the NLC and Trade Union Congress (TUC) succeeded in shutting down the country (banks, oil industry, power sector, air travels etc. were all grounded) until 8 July when, following a series of negotiations, Oshiomhole announced that Labour would accept a fresh proposal by the federal government which reduced the pump price to N34 per litre. And in January 2012 when protesters took to the streets of Lagos for several days against President Goodluck Jonathan on this same issue of fuel subsidy, Tinubu not only supported their stance but also issued a strong statement to justify it. Today, this same man is pleading for ‘patience’ after taking the same decision on which he helped to upend his predecessors!

And in a most provocative statement, the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, yesterday mocked organisers of the protest. “All of us feel the impact of what is happening now. But we are aware it will be for a short while. MD, I want to thank you for what you said,” Akpabio stated while addressing the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) delegates from Rivers State led by the commission’s Managing Director. “You said we are not interested in regime change; let us own this government. Those who want to protest can protest but let us be there eating.”

Apparently so that the Akpabios of this world would have enough to ‘eat’ at public expense, some agencies of government are reeling out policies that only aggravate the sufferings of the people. Despite complaints by the Airline Operators of Nigeria over multiple charges that hamper their operations, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) last Friday announced that it would increase some charges to airlines by 800 percent—from N50,000 to N450,000. At a time like this! Although the federal government has since intervened to halt the policy, you wonder why those in positions of power in Nigeria today seem impervious to the public mood. To compound our woes, even though the pump price of PMS has more than quadrupled in the past one year, the commodity is still not readily available.

Unfortunately, the reality of Nigeria is that we don’t even know when this rain started to beat us. I am sure many readers have come across the trending letter of one of the foremost educationists in our country and founder of Mayflower Secondary School, Ikenne, Ogun State, the late Dr Tai Solarin. Written on 30th November 1983 to parents and titled ‘Feeding our 2,300 children’, Solarin lamented the skyrocketing prices of foodstuffs in the country. And that was 41 years ago. “We are frightened by the rate foodstuffs are rising madly in prices. There was an evening when we had no palm oil at all to prepare supper and a man in Sagamu offered us a drum for ₦700.00. Of course we did not buy it. At the same time, we have bought other items of food for about twice what we paid for them three months ago,” Solarin had stated in the letter which was an appeal to parents of students in his school. “I have travelled to Oyo and 22 miles further north sampling yams, tomatoes, beans and pepper. For this term we have turned some of the members of school administration to food buyers to under-cut the prices offered by our regular purchasers. Brown beans now go for ₦200 a bag.”

After highlighting the precarious financial situation in the school and stating that an increase in fees was inevitable, Solarin concluded: “It is impossible for anybody to scientifically guess how much increase should be charged as the cause of our woes is, itself, unscientific: I have no doubt you will understand. The situation is grim. But we cannot close the school.”

Now to the core issue. In a democracy, and one especially patterned after that of the United States, protests and civil disobedience are part of the package. But the challenge of the moment is to ask whether there is political salvation from the streets, especially in the Nigeria of today. In the two incidences of 2003 and 2012 earlier cited, there was no violence. In fact, Oshiomhole led almost a dozen strikes against Obasanjo, some lasting days. If anything, it was Oshiomhole himself who got brutalised, teargassed and arrested during some of these protests but never at any point was there public looting. The same with the 2012 protests during which musicians played and drinks were served in Lagos. That, sadly, was also the way the EndSARS started in December 2020 before it descended into a national tragedy. And given that sordid experience, one can understand why the federal government is agitated by the idea of protests at a period when so many people are hungry and could easily take advantage.

Going back to the ‘Autumn of Nations’, it is indeed remarkable that the 1989 revolutions produced diverse outcomes in different countries. At the ‘Forum 2000’ conference in Prague five years ago, four sessions captured two of the most significant events of 1989: ‘Chinese Superpower and the Promise of Tien´anmen 1989’ and ‘Germany: 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall’. While the uprising in the then East Germany led to the fall of the Berlin Wall along with its communist regime, what followed was economic prosperity for the united Germany. But perhaps the most remarkable of those (1989) revolutions happened in the then Czechoslovakia.

It began on 17th November 1989, with a non-violent protest to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1939 invasion of Czech universities by the Nazi army which killed no fewer than nine students and sent many to concentration camps. Providing inspiration (through underground radio broadcasts) for students and members of civil society who converged in Prague on that day and in the days that followed was Havel. The protest quickly assumed a life of its own and within a period of six weeks (by 29th December 1989), the communist government was overthrown by the people without a single gun fired. Havel (who had spent five years in jail between 1979 to 1983 after which he published his famous book, ‘Letters to Olga’, a compilation of correspondence to his wife while incarcerated) became the president of Czechoslovakia.

To come back home. That we have enormous challenges is no longer in doubt. But if the objective is for our country to make the transition to a system that is more accountable while leveraging the latent capacity of our people, can the solution come from the streets?

All factors considered; I doubt!

Two Generations of Saxophonists

Come Saturday 17 August, Demilade Adepegba, 15, fondly called The BOLD One, will be showcasing his dexterity with the saxophone at the Annual Teens Career Conference of The Everlasting Arms Parish (TEAP) of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) Abuja. With the special guest, former Cross River State Governor, Mr Donald Duke, also a saxophonist, it will be a combination of the young and the old. But that’s not the real story. Demilade’s parents discovered his love for music very early and on his 6th birthday, they presented him a saxophone. Meanwhile, the story of Duke, 64, who sees music as a life-long passion, is similar. “I started playing music at the age of three. My parents got me a piano and sat me down, then I had a music teacher. But after the piano, the first instrument I played was the flute. From the flute to the guitar, from the guitar I did a lot of vocals. Then I tried the saxophone,” Duke explained in an interview with Daily Trust on how he fell in love with the saxophone and his passion for music. “You see, when you play these instruments it’s your fingers that find the notes. But it transports you. Every other period, I’m guarded. But when I’m playing music, I’m just myself. I can play from now till the wee hours of the morning and I’m not tired because I enjoy doing it. And it’s only when you enjoy what you are doing that your passion comes out.”

Themed ‘The Power of Music’, I find the interconnectedness of the stories of our speakers this year interesting because the parental influence that fired the imaginations of both Duke and Damilade also nudged Darey Art Alade, 42 and Mrs Bukola Bekes, 43, in the same direction. As son of the late Modupe Afolabi Jemi-Alade popularly known as Art Alade, a famous Nigerian television personality in the 70s, Darey learnt the craft from his father. As for Bekes, she was encouraged by her parents to join the church choir right from childhood and today, she is the Music Director at the RCCG, City of David, Lagos. These eminent personalities will be joined by the chief host, Pastor Evaristus Azodoh who will conclude the conference with the Father’s Blessings. Eligible participants should visit rccgteapteens.ng for online registration.

And since we are talking about music, I felt sad yesterday to learn about the death of the much-adored Onyeka Onwenu, the ‘elegant stallion’. May God comfort her family.

• You can follow me on my X (formerly Twitter) handle, @Olusegunverdict and on www.olusegunadeniyi.com