SomberTuesday! Electioneering campaigns are still ongoing. Candidates assure Nigerians that if elected, they will transform Nigeria and help propel it to greatness. However, historical experience casts doubt on their capacity to accomplish these laudable goals. The candidates also must remember that #EndSARS protesters called for an end to bad governance, impunity, violence, and police brutality. However, they were brutally suppressed. This conflicts with the expectations of Nigerians that our government will embrace, respect, and entrench democratic principles. The economy is in the doldrums. Insecurity is prevalent, with kidnappings and abductions normalized. Those whose kinfolk are in captivity are compelled to ransom them. One can only imagine the trauma and gargantuan financial burdens that torment and trouble them. The internally displaced and destitute victims of devastating floods have suffered losses including deaths of friends, family, and acquaintances, injuries, and losses of property, and livelihood. Two years on, #Nigeria must never forget the massacre of peacefully demonstrating youths at #LekkiTollGate and other locations. Given our current reality, we should say: #NigerianWomenArise #EndPoliceBrutalityinNigeriaNOW #EndSars #EndSWAT #EndImpunity
Howard Zinn’s statement is relevant to Nigeria’s situation: “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.” 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.
