On Tuesday, the Nigeria Police Force cordoned off the road leading to the Afrika Shrine in Ikeja, Lagos, to prevent an #EndSARS meeting from happening. In a letter to Afrika Shrine’s operators, Lagos State Police Command warned against hosting a potentially volatile meeting at “this perilous time,” and that any consequent social destabilisation will “be tagged a deliberate action to sabotage the transition and restoration of the peace in Lagos by the state government and the Nigeria Police Force.”
First, one wonders why the alarmism of “perilous time” as if we have pivoted to the so-called end times. There is nothing more perilous about the country today than it was last year. Nigeria has always been perilous, and to be born a Nigerian is to be imperilled from the cradle. Second, while it is understandable why they seek to contain mass movements like #EndSARS, they ought to know too that it is impossible to “restore peace” as they have proposed when they have not exhibited their capacity to understand the imperative of justice. They can spend all their time running from Ikeja to Lokoja to restore an elusive peace, but until they understand the sensibilities that underwrite the discontent with the nation-state, they are merely wasting time.
On the same Tuesday of the cordon off, the Minister of Police Affairs, Muhammad Dingyadi, told journalists that to prevent a repeat of the #EndSARS debacle, the government will “continue to maintain its bureaucratic, humane, and just postures in handling security matters in the country…” and “will continue to dialogue…listen and…carry all stakeholders along.” If the bureaucracy they currently run is the minister’s idea of “humane and just” operating procedures, that merely confirms the degree of their incorrigibility. One cannot but be cynical; these people have no inclination to change a thing about the conditions that led to the #EndSARS protest. If using force to stop people from gathering is what their vision of a “dialogue” with stakeholders looks like, then we might as well be back where we started. As long as they understand dissent as something to stamp out with force rather than a discontent that needs to be addressed from its root causes, nothing will ever change.
In the wake of #EndSARS, the same people that said they desire peace have been combative. They have arrested #EndSARS participants, denied them their fundamental human rights, and are currently trying some of them based on frivolous accusations. When and how did it become a crime to protest or have a meeting to strategise on the way forward after those protests? The same people that claimed they are trying to restore peace barred someone from leaving the country for her role in the protests, froze bank accounts of many, and are now clamping down on civic activities.
How can they claim they want peace when their activities show recalcitrance? How does one reconcile that double posture? How exactly do they plan to address the issues raised by #EndSARS if they bring down the heavy weight of institutional power to punish them for organising a protest? Even more befuddling are the agencies that are supposed to be autonomous but now corralled to jointly throw the kitchen sink at the protesters. From the Central Bank of Nigeria to the judiciary, to politicians like Ondo State governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, who justified the freezing of the protesters’ bank accounts, it seems like none of these people has any moral clarity on issues other than playing the politics of I-remain-loyal to their father-who-art-in-Abuja. At this rate, the very problems of power abuse by the police that drove enraged people into the streets to protest will eventually become the sideshow. Instead of focusing on the institutional conditions that have supported police brutality, we will merely end up wangling our way out of the thicket of abuse of even more power abuse and routine brutality in the hands of more state agents.
One could potentially argue that given the scale of destruction that accompanied the #EndSARS protests, it is understandable why the police will like to prevent another round of violence. However, when one considers the disproportionate ways they use power to suppress potential troublemakers from different regions in Nigeria, one cannot afford to be any less circumspect. For instance, while they have gone after the #EndSARS protesters saying their activities could unleash violence, they have more or less pampered the northerners who have threatened to unleash violence in Nigeria.
Let us start with the story of a random lawyer called S.S. Umar, who wrote a petition to the Inspector-General of Police, Muhammed Adamu, asking that Mubarak Bala, president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, be arrested for making comments that Umar considered uncomplimentary of his religion. Bala was promptly arrested in April, and he has since been incarcerated without trial. One person -not known to have any clout-threatened violence over an issue that could easily have been resolved if people knew how to use the “block” button on social media, and the police did his bidding! Yet, they want us to believe that the activities of the #EndSARS protesters are what will combust Nigeria? No, the #EndSARS protest is becoming a convenient alibi to hide the real sources of violence in the country.
There are few things that happen in Nigeria that still shocks me, but the Bala episode was frightening! As it is turning out, it is not an isolated instance. It is gradually becoming a pattern. Consider the case of another random extremist fellow, Lawal Gusau, who wrote a petition to the police to demand that Kannywood’s actress, Rahama Sadau, be investigated for posting a photograph of herself on her own Instagram page. How come ordinary folks like Umar and Gusau have that much confidence to write a petition demanding that people be punished with judicial instruments for the “crime” of free expression on social media? Can a southern Christian write those kinds of petition and attract a similar reaction?
In a serious society, the police would have crumpled those petitions and thrown them into the nearest bin before asking Umar and Gusau to mind their business, but no. To demonstrate their spinelessness, the IG’s office signed off on Sadau’s harassment, the woman’s brother got arrested, and Sadau had to go underground. How does it happen that regular folks can wield such power to control national agencies that supposedly regulate law and order? The police could not call Gusau and warn him to desist from trying to foment trouble, but they could accuse Eromosele Adene, one of the #EndSARS promoters, and accuse him of “criminal incitement, cyberstalking, provoking a breach of public peace, and conduct likely to cause the breach of public peace”?! Who is the bigger threat here?
For these people to keep petitioning the police, they must have rock-solid confidence in their ability to manipulate the state to indulge their whims. We live in interesting times. The religious-based violence we used to associate with the almajiri children has now been transferred to people who can read and write enough to compose a petition. I am not entirely surprised. Given how many millions of those poor children roam the streets of the North now, it is no longer wise to deploy them for mischief. Things could go out of hand quickly, and their handlers might not be able to control the outcome. Now, they have graduated to using allegedly educated people to make the same point of maintaining social control through threats of violence. Unfortunately, our impotent leaders indulge them.
If Nigeria will go down on an orgy of violence, it will not be because of the #EndSARS people protesting police brutality. It will happen because our institutions have become tools in the hands of those systematically institutionalising injustice and power abuse. That is why they cannot “restore peace” by imposing tranquillity. There is no peace without justice and equity. Their efforts are, at best, like that of a fireman who thinks he can douse a conflagration by pissing on the raging fire. The effort is not only worthless, but they will also eventually self-destruct.
Credit: Abimbola Adelakun, Punch