Prologue
I am not a historian, and I shall leave it for the persons better informed
and interested in the history to tell the tales, but the #EndSARS protests are
as historic as they are also predictive of the future. It is for this
predictive purpose that I have deemed it important to analyse what took place
in that season, as a guide to the future, which lies inexorably ahead of us.
“Ndi lazy youth, are you planning a revolution in disguise?”
After one of the several episodic eruptions of murderous venality by the
Nigerian police, this time in Delta State, blame as always on the dreaded SARS
unit, which had ended with the end of another innocent life, several conditions
conspired to birth a moment in time, when the Nigerian youth became engaged
enough to demand answers of the Nigeria State and its evil rulers.
The youth, under the umbrella of the #EndSARS movement, demanded the end of
the SARS units across the country in the immediate aftermath of the Delta
murder, and they issued a raft of demands which soon enjoyed celebrity
endorsements, and began to take on a life of its own. I was sufficiently bored
enough to read the occasional news item about one celebrity or the other being
called to the IG’s office as the state scrambled to head-off what would appear
to be getting out of hand.
I soon began to see carnivals on the streets disguised as protests, abi na
protests disguised as carnivals. Ndi lazy youth became engaged, and the Nigeria
State became uneasy and flustered. The State began to seek whom to influence,
and they began to seek the leadership of the movement for the usual compromise.
As already confessed, I am not a historian; I have merely recalled what I
can of the protests in order to offer context. My major preoccupation is with
the relevance of the season in the quest to predict the future. I am keener on
identifying the responses of the Nigeria State, its rulers, the Nigerian
peoples themselves, the governance systems, and the several other actors, local
and foreign, with a view to a clear understanding of what to expect, when the
time shall come… As it must.
As the protests began to gain popularity and traction, the Nigeria State
began to unfurl its usual tactics. In Benin, prisoners were released by the
prison authorities, and cries of a jailbreak provoked by the #EndSARS
protesters rent the air, at least it did until the prisoners began to tell of
how they were practically chased out of their cells by the wardens.
In Abuja, there are several photographic records of state security personnel coordinating with thugs and miscreants!
The state complicity in Lagos was as brazen as it is predictable…
Excerpt from Imperatives of the Nigerian Revolution
