It is always interesting to read the reactions of Nigerian to various national and international issues. You get a full mix of brilliant arguments, morally compelling admonitions, sensationalist illogic, and watery defense of the establishment often couched in flowery language. More often than not, when individuals realise their interventions are morally vacuous and intellectually wanting, they take a recourse to ad hominems and veiled- and not so veiled- threats.
In this short piece, I’d like to invite you join me in examining some of the specious arguments being put forward by apologists of the Nigerian state, in the wake of the protests that engulfed the nation.
The first of these arguments I have come across is the suggestion that those who supported, and supports, the right of Nigerian citizens to peaceful protests, should be held responsible for, or at least made guilty about, the violent outcomes in some sites of protests in Nigeria over the past few days. The argument goes that supporters of protest should know better that, with previous experiences of protests in Nigeria, citizen protests were always, or most likely, to be hijacked by violent elements and should therefore be discouraged- presumably at all times. These apologists conveniently forget Nigeria’s own recent history and legacy of civil action and citizen advocacy, of which protests are a key part. It was the force of citizens protest, led by Nigerian citizens both home and diaspora, that put an end to military rule in 1998/99 and has now given the country 25 years of uninterrupted civil rule. The years of citizen struggle against Military rule did not pass without challenges and casualties, including some high profile ones. In the wake of the June 12 1993 protests, thugs were unleashed to disrupt citizens protest, and a dedicated death squad was set up by Abacha’s military junta. Still, you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone today who would argue, with hindsight, that the citizens campaign against the military was the wrong thing to do. And this is not the end of the matter, because the democratic process does not mature on autopilot. Conscious citizens must keep at it- scrutinising, probing, and always raising the bar of expectation from their elected representatives and governments. Make no mistake, the Office of the Citizen is the most important office in a liberal democracy. It is the citizen who wields the power of democratic renewal, through the choices they exercise in the ballot at elections, and their continuous, active engagement between electoral cycles. Without this committed, continuous efforts of conscious citizens, society falls into atrophy. And so it was, in 2009, Nigerians again rightfully took to the streets when the Yar Adua government was taken over by an opportunistic cabal, in the wake of President Yar Adua’s sickness. Nigerians would subsequently take to the streets, once more, in protest during Jonathan’s government, as well as Buhari’s. We cannot gloss over the horrific spectacles of death unleashed by the Nigerian armed forces during the #EndSARS protest, but it is perverse and immoral to blame peaceful citizen protesters for the destruction unleashed by those officers paid by taxpayers to keep citizens safe. Or, for that matter, to blame the organisers of the #EndSARS protesters for the violence unleashed by hoodlums in various parts of Nigeria.
The argument that citizens who organise peaceful protests inherently invite or incentivises violence is fundamentally flawed. It is also morally perverse, the equivalence of arguing, in effect, that those who seek to do good do so in order to bring about evil. Such an argument is desperate and bizarre, quite frankly. Organisers of the Nigerian protests are not insurrectionists calling for an end to the Nigerian government. They are not armed militants, terrorists, or bandits, of which Nigeria is not in short supply. Citizens should be able to raise their voices in protest when they are unhappy with the performance of their government, and even the most desperate apologists for government must see, at the very least, that all is not well with the country and things can be much better. It is also the case that Nigerians have been venting their grievance on social media and other channels for more than a year now. In the circumstances, it is in the interest of government, and of society, to allow citizens to come out openly to give voice and face to their grievance. The alternative is to suppress their voice and push them underground, and into the shadows. Not much good comes from the shadows, as our history has shown.
In sum, while there will always be a risk of violent hijack, there is no good reason to deny citizens the right to peacefully protest. Let me add, of course, that I believe that organisers of protest should always cooperate with law enforcement so they can protect peaceful protesters and deal with those who unleash violence. Citizens should be able to protest, nonetheless.
Let me now come to the second point raised by some who are comparing the violent protests going on in parts of the UK with the protests in Nigeria. Some have summoned this comparison to take petty digs at Nigerians in the UK who supported the protest in Nigeria, concocting all sorts of spurious narratives in the process. By their perverse logic, those comparing the UK far right protests with Nigerian protests also do not, presumably, see a difference, in substance and form, between a Civil Right march and a Kulx Klux Klan procession. For good measure, they would see no difference between a Jesse Owens black power salute at the Olympics and a Nazi commander giving a Nazi salute to troops. I think it says something about the way their mind works and a sheer level of desperation to make such incongruous comparisons between far right racists who set out to unleash violence, including on law enforcement officers; and long-suffering citizens seeking better performance and outcomes from their elected government on existential issues. In their moral muddle, Nigerian government apologists making this dubious comparison believe that far right violent marchers demanding that migrants be precipitously sent back to their countries are equally reasonable in their demands as Nigerian citizens asking for government interventions to mitigate the impact of hyperinflation, reduce the price of goods, and reduce ostentatious elite living in the midst of hardships for citizens. These apologists conveniently miss the point that there is hardly any one of those far right thugs that is not on government benefits, if they do not have regular employment. If you are to make a comparison with any semblance of moral clarity, you will find that the far right protest is an exercise in vanity, not a comparable desperate cry for help. Still, this is not the main point of difference, which is: far right groups actively advocate morally repugnant views and seek violent means to achieve them. It’s double whammy. To compare them with citizens demanding action from their government on existential issues of physiological survival and basic welfare, is morally vacuous. To inject ridicule into the comparison is beyond the pale.
In the end, what has emerged as a trend in these inauspicious interventions of apologists of the Nigerian government, is a ready recourse to strata man argument and ad hominens, in the hope that they won’t be found out. To achieve this, their interventions are infused with a lot emotional contents to steer their readers from the path of clear-headed, rational scrutiny. Thus, for example, when they take desperate aims at Nigerians in diaspora for their support of protesters, they sensationally proclaim that those diaspora Nigerias are inciting violence at home while their own family is safely tucked away abroad. Their hope, in this instance, is that they can make their readers forget three things, among others: that the diaspora Nigerians are not the cause of Nigeria woes that instigated the protest; that the protest is being organised by groups of Nigerians at home who will proceed regardless of support they get from overseas; Nigerians in Diaspora do, in fact have families and interests at home and are therefore legitimate stakeholders in the affairs of the Nigerian state. They probably know these themselves, of course, but their object as rabble rousers is to steer unsuspecting readers away from objective truth and cold facts.
