#SomberTuesday! Electioneering campaigns continue despite the chaos and mayhem attending the currency change. Candidates and their proxies want the electorate to believe that Nigeria needs them, and that they are veritable messiahs. Historically, such empty promises are not fulfilled. The road to hell is lined with good intentions. Important issues tend to have a short lifespan. The suffering of the masses get scant attention.
Part of what the #EndSARS youth protesters wanted was an end to the normalization of catastrophes that seem to be inevitable when there is bad governance, impunity, and violence. They also decried police brutality. But they were subjected to state-sponsored violence and brutally suppressed. Most Nigerians also want a government that is committed to democratic principles. They want a thriving economy, security, and a good quality of life. They want an end to kidnappings and abductions. Those whose family members are in captivity cope with psychological trauma and huge financial burdens with help from very few friends who provide whatever material and psychological comfort that they can muster.
There is trauma among IDPs from insurgencies and citizens who suffered tremendous human and property losses during unprecedented floods, that has them contending with the deaths of friends, family, and acquaintances, injuries, and losses of livelihood. On top of all this, the shortage of new currency has created even more pressure for people who are already struggling with precarity.
Two years on, #Nigeria should remember the massacre of peacefully demonstrating youths at #LekkiTollGate & other locations. #NigerianWomenArise #EndPoliceBrutalityinNigeriaNOW #EndSars #EndSWAT #EndImpunity
Like the voice in the wilderness, I reiterate Howard Zinn’s statement: “Civil disobedience, that’s not our problem. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while, the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”
Like the broken record, I keep saying: Let the kleptocrats give back our stolen wealth so that we can fix our infrastructure, schools, hospitals, and also offer worthwhile social protection to our people. Let the masses enjoy the full benefits of citizenship in Nigeria. Let the leaders and political class repent and build peace with justice. This is no time for politics as usual. The people elected should be those trusted to bring justice, equity and human security to the entire country, not expedient, unethical and egocentric individuals determined to dominate for self aggrandizement or sectional gain. We don’t need oligarchs’ continued domination. We also need a government that puts the interests of majority of citizens first.
Prof. Mojúbàolú Olufúnké Okome is a professor of political science at Brooklyn College in New York.
