Beyond The Protest (2) By Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, SAN

The ten-day #EndBadGovernance protests ended last week with different lessons for different persons, for the organisers, the government and the citizens. Where I stand is that I support the exercise of constitutional rights by the people in so far as it is peaceful, civil and orderly. I insist that this is possible if the government and those organising any protest can come together to agree on the modalities for such exercise. If such protest is to be executed nationwide for instance, there should be identifiable persons in all the locations of the protests as was the case with the Nigerian Labour Congress and the Academic Staff Union of Universities, who will lead the protests and coordinate them in such a way that would avoid infiltration by persons who may have different intentions beyond the civil protests.

This was the good intention of the organisers of the #EndBadGovernance protests but I verily believe that they have learnt a few lessons from their recent outings. First is to always agree on and communicate the OBJECTIVE of the protest, in this case to end hunger, poverty and reversal of some of the economic policies of the government, especially fuel subsidy removal and devaluation of the Naira. This is because such struggle will surely involve short, medium and long term goals, since in this case, the protests were to last ten days, meaning that some of the objectives may not be attainable within the period of the protests.

This then leads to the second aspect of any protest which is engagement, especially with the government and the authorities to which the protests are directed. The experience in the past was to aggregate the charter of demands for any protest and put it in writing, with the expectation of passing it over to the relevant authorities at a strategic location where the protesters and the authorities would meet. This was not done in this case, which failure gave the impression that the organizers were intractable or altogether faceless. Somebody amongst the organizers has to take responsibility one way or the other by way of giving directions for the protests and creating organs for dialogue. If however the purpose is that of regime change, then that will be a different ball game altogether, because other considerations will follow.

It is a wrong mentality to target the vulnerable members of the populace as the only unit of the execution of protests. In this particular economy, virtually everyone is affected one way or the other. I was therefore shocked when my attention was drawn to an interview on national television by one of the organizers of the protests that they can only be represented by a hungry lawyer. We used to call this ‘infantile radicalism’, in those days in school, when young comrades with little or no experience worked to undo themselves. The logic of the young man was that as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, I could not be hungry enough to feel the pangs of the protesters. So, the Take It Back Movement did not know of my status before I was engaged to facilitate protection for them and to dialogue with the police.

What has hunger and status got to do with the struggle? Obafemi Awolowo, Alfred Rewane, Beko Ransome-Kuti, Ndubuisi Kanu, Balarabe Musa, etc, were not poor by any standards, yet they offered themselves at critical times in our nation to fight for the people. And even Comrade Sowore himself cannot be classified as a poor man! And he knows too well my history and how I got to where I am by the grace of God and goodwill of the people as we have both been strugglers all along. In order to avoid any issue of conflict of interests, I had politely declined all media invitations to speak on the protests, prior to the fatuous declaration by their young leader. So, I take it that his appearance on television was more of a set up by the media to provoke my response. I mean if I knew that poverty was the basis of legal representation, I would gladly have declined the instructions, while still supporting the peaceful protests in my own little way. Another important lesson on the part of the organizers of the protest is the need to reach out to and network with other people with experience in the prosecution of mass struggles. A lone ranger cannot successfully combat the forces of oppression against the masses.

On the part of government is the need for proactive intelligence and a swift response mechanism. In Kano for instance, the authorities stated that they were well aware of plans to use the protest as an excuse to execute destruction and violence and this was passed over to the relevant security agencies but nothing was done about it to mount surveillance at strategic locations for the purpose of protecting critical infrastructure.

“Before this happened, the security operatives were notified in writing that there were signals of a possible attack on the printing press during the protest. But no action or precautions were taken to prevent it from happening. Unfortunately, it was allowed to happen.”

Protest is one thing, anarchy is another and once it is clear that other events were happening which had nothing to do with the goals of the original protest, it then becomes the responsibility of the government to defend lives and property as imposed by law. So, it may be correct as stated in some quarters that the government and the security agencies deliberately allowed the destruction and violence in some locations in order to deploy these as weapons of blackmail against future protests. The narrative would then be that no peaceful protest can ever be organized in Nigeria. For instance, whenever reference is made to the #EndSARS protests of 2020, the immediate focus is that of violence and destruction while ignoring the peaceful conduct of the youths prior to the October 2020 incident at the Lekki Toll Gate, when soldiers stormed the protest ground. Without doubt, there will always be protests, since many policies of the government will not go down well with the citizens. That being the case, the government should make deliberate efforts to always engage the organizers of protests. The Lagos State Governor tried to do this during the #EndBadGovernance protests by creating new departments of the government to engage the protesters.

The second point is the need to oil government relations whereby protesters are not seen as enemies of the state that must be hounded, maimed, arrested or even killed. In Rivers State, the Governor visited the protest ground to address the protesters, thus creating a sense of belonging, which should have been done in Kano, Kaduna, Borno, Abuja and other locations where the protests took place. In particular, the various authorities that approached the courts to restrict the protests to certain locations missed the opportunity of engaging the protesters in those locations. I had expected that the Governors of the States and the FCT Minister who got these court orders should have made themselves available in those locations where they wanted the protesters to gather, in order to engage them constructively. To ignore the protesters totally is to give the wrong impression that the authorities were not concerned with their agitations or that they were not entitled to the exercise of their fundamental rights. I believe that this was one of the reasons why the protesters rejected the speech of the President as belated; it did not address the real issues raised by the protesters, providing fuel for future protests.

I then ask the question: what truly is the assignment of the Ministry of Information, Ministry of Youth Affairs, and Ministry of Labour if they cannot intervene at times like this to facilitate dialogue with Nigerians who are aggrieved with the policies of the government that they serve? Sufficient notices were issued by the protesters so the government had enough time to engage them to discuss the issues raised, no matter how flimsy the government views them.

To develop a thick skin against any and all opposition should not be the policy of any government elected by the people. It is only a dictator who forces his way into power that would dare the anger of citizens or turn a blind eye when there is mass outcry against the policies of the government. The President himself having staged many protests in the past when he was in the opposition, he should not lead a government that is averse to criticism or civil protests. The other aspect is that of positive use of information and education. The point to make is that the law guarantees the right to freedom of expression and lawful assembly, being universal rights considered and accepted as basic to human existence. Destruction, violence and anarchy are however criminal offences that are punishable by law. The error of always mixing this together for the purpose of stopping the lawful exercise of civil actions by the citizens has always backfired. In this case, it was the government itself that assisted in propagating the protests amongst the citizens, through mindless blackmail and tactless propaganda. What this does is to scare away citizens who have the genuine intention to participate peacefully. As it happened in Plateau, Osun and Lagos States, when peaceful protesters outnumber the few who harbour criminal intentions, the latter would always bow to the dictates of the former. In Plateau State in particular, popular clergymen and women trooped out to lead the protests while preaching the message of peace and harmony such that it was not possible for criminals to break their rank.

Now the protests are over and the question is: what next? Let the government set up a committee of eminent persons across the nation to examine the issues. Are people suffering? Yes. Are the policies of the government helping to reduce the pains and pangs of hunger and poverty? No. Will there be further protests if the hunger and pains continue? Yes. This requires no rocket science to figure out. As far as the Constitution stipulates that the primary purpose of any government shall be security and welfare of the people, any economic policy that impoverishes the people should be re-examined.