Musings on Nigeria: Izeze cautions against uncoordinated hunger protests
*AS THEY CALL YOU OUT TO PROTEST AGAINST “HUNGER”?*
A beautiful theme they have chosen; The faceless organisers calling you out to “TAKE BACK YOUR COUNTRY” or “END BAD GOVERNANCE.”
HUNGER is a familiar name and feeling to every human!!!
The rich, poor, young, old, beautiful, ugly, Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Traditionalist, black, white or coloured, so long as you are of life, you are familiar with the physical pang of HUNGER.
HUNGER therefore forms the best theme to use at a time like this in our chequered history to galvanise the entire populace to mass/civil action.
However, despite my total acknowledgement of the real and apparent HUNGER in the land,my disdain for the KLEPTOMANIC APC led Federal Government and my helplessness at the outrageous inflationary realities, I am yet optimistic that NIGERIA will survive!!!
*I therefore do not subscribe to these UNCOORDINATED calls for a mass protest with effect from today August 1st.*
While I am a subscriber to the use of PEACEFULLY ORGANIZED PROTESTS as a form of political/economic negotiation and a Constitutional right, I am totally opposed to the adverse effects of UNCOORDINATED PROTESTS .
As a student of history,I have read and witnessed how well intended but UNCOORDINATED PROTESTS have led to a conflagration of monumental proportions.
I shall therefore buttress my point here with a few instances that I hope some of us here can relate with.
My Comrade,brother and bossom friend was the leader of a Students Union sometimes in the 90s.He had ridden to office on a very popular vote and was an extremely popular president of his Union.
The Students loved him and naturally the management disliked him because he had acquired the love of his Students through the extraction of costly compromises from the University Management. NEPA(as it then was) had become a thorn in the flesh of all residents of Eku, Abraka and environs.
Previous Unions had a cause to mobilise Students to the NEPA headquarters in Warri and secured improved electricity supply in the past.
Well, my Comrade altruistically sought to do the same in his regime and decided to call out his Students for a March to NEPA HQ Warri.
Previous Presidents who had chosen this route had usually gone with only a handful of willing Comrades who were disciplined and easy to manage because they had been briefed prior.
However,when my Comrade called out the troops with the same intent as his predecessors,he forgot to take into consideration his POPULARITY WITH HIS STUDENTS!!!
The entire student population of the university(with the exception of a few super conservatives) answered the call and that was the beginning of the near-end for my Comrade and a generation of students’ leaders.
Because the protest was not planned or coordinated,the crowd simply overwhelmed the leader and by the time the teargas/pepperspray was unleashed by the NNS UMALOKUN(as it then was), all hell was let loose.
Street touts and Warri “guymen” simply took over the peaceful protest and went on a looting spree from the main market warri,through Mciver market, to Igbudu and Effurun markets.
These touts simply cashed in on a poorly organised and coordinated but peacefully well intended protest to unleash sorrow tears and blood upon business owners on the Warri/Abraka route.
What followed was a series of events that kept detonating like an IED connected in series.These events eventually led to the death of two students,the expulsion/rustication of several Union Comrades and a crisis that spanned over 5 years and tore at the very helms of the academic gowns of that Ivory Tower.
*THE PTI MARCH 7TH MASSACRE!!!*
March 6TH, 2002.
The PDP in Delta State was to host then Governor of Delta State, Chief James Onanefe IBORI to a grand reception upon return from his annual vacation. To give it a home boy effect,it was decided that he should be hosted at the favourite ground(in that era) of Political Parties for their rallies in Delta Central Senatorial district; the PTI ARCADE/MINI STADIUM.
The event was billed to hold the next day,March 7TH and I therefore decided to ensure the ground was as smooth as usual before the arrival of guests. I had left school as a student but I still had an unseen hand in the installation of one of the best leadership the PTI STUDENTS’ UNION had ever produced as at then;
*THE COMRADE CHOICE EKPEKUREDE SUG GOVERNMENT OF THE 2021/2022 Session.*
When I arrived the Campus, I had gotten in touch with Mr. President and together we had proceeded to the Mini STADIUM area to join The late FRIDAY MIYAKHUE ANI and his crew as they were the host LGA and responsible for the arrangement of the proposed venue.
I recall that amongst those we met on that way were Peter ABUGEWA, Francis Arhiyor, Ramson Onoyake and a couple of others. We all exchanged pleasantries and were bantering on the size of Grand Chair and ABUGEWA’s tummy when Grand chair insisted we all do sit-ups to ascertain who was more fit between I, Peter Abugewa and him. That was how simple The late FRIDAY MIYAKHUE ANI was when you met him in his natural elements and faculties.
“We were at it when the late Chief Efe Akpobi;Chairman SUBEB,IPP Registrar of the PTI and a personal father to all of us who had passed through him as REGISTRAR arrived the venue.
He joined Friday in the supervision of the work on the venue after which he appreciated the SUG PRESIDENT for his cooperation with the local leaders of the PDP and assured us of his reciprocity after the event.If you knew Chief Akpobi of SUBEB of that era,you should know what his *”promisory note”* meant.
To further assert why it was taken for granted that the ceremony was definitely going to be peaceful,the PDP and in fact other political parties/organisations had used that mini stadium in the past without having any qualms.That mini stadium even used to be the alternative host of the NIGERIAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE of that period.
To add further assurance,FRIDAY ANI had,like the godfather *DON VITO CORLEONE* in the Sicilian fictional story by Mario Puzo,ensured that he always had a hand in the Politics and emergence of the right kind of leadership for the Students Union(he was an Alumnus of the Institute as are many of his political associates). So, all was perfectly set for the rally the next day.
However, by the next morning, a group of 7 students’ washivists, realising that the Governor was going to be visiting the Campus that day quickly termed themselves liberators and went round the hostels attempting to mobilise Students of Delta State origin for a full blown PROTEST against the Governor for failing to pay them their ANNUAL BURSARIES.
One of the commonest source of conflict the world over is KPOGRI!!!
Money (economic power) and the fight for it’s possession/ownership has been known to lead to conflicts between couples,siblings,families and nations so it is commonly one of the easiest rallying points of the masses.
Like today’s theme of HUNGER,the mention of the word;*BURSARY* in any Campus naturally attracted undivided attention and support by students.
Yet, on this morning, Comrade CHOICE EKPEKUREDE was said to have brought his popularity with his Students and his oratory prowess to bear and that was how he had quelled this illegal and UNCOORDINATED PROTEST after which he had asked students to go about their normal academic businesses of the day.
However, little did he know that these 7 Pretenders to leadership had decided to go ahead with their protest because they had a simple agenda ab initio,which was; To use the protest as a means to reach Chief Akpobi or Friday Ani to broker an *economic truce.* That was ALL the leaders of that group of 7 clowns wanted.To put it simply,they wanted to obtain *deve* from the GRAND CHAIR & THEIR OWN IP REGISTRAR!!!!
Now, if not for some definite form of insanity of the highest grade,who would dare to want to *obtain* Friday Ani in Delta State talk less of Effurun where he bestrode like a colossus???
These 7 jesters then proceeded to the mini stadium on a frolic of their own with their rag tag placards and did attempt to disrupt proceedings at the rally.
Friday was quickly called upon as they (clowns) had predicted and he immediately set out to pacify them by even taking them to meet with the then Commissioner for Education, Chief Ighoyota Conference Amori(as he then was).The clowns quickly presumed that they had hit a bigger JACKPOT by meeting Amori.
However being the empty skulls they were,they had done no research on their potential foes hence they were morons to the notorious fact that Chief Amori was a standing well well Comrade of the University of Benin Students Union and had indeed suffered rustication on account of his contributions to the success of the ALLI MUST GO PROTESTS as Secretary General of the Great University of Benin Students Union at that time.Therefore,the attempt to ruffle or intimidate him would be an exercise in futility especially for those nitwits.
Added to this was the fact that if they had bothered to fact check,they would have learnt that although Chief Amori always had a swollen purse with him,it was usually filled with documents and not wads of Naira notes(Hahahahahhahaa).
“Well, Amori danced their solidarity song with them and actually corrected them when they sang the lines very poorly (to tell you those guys were NOT activists by any shred) after which he went back to his seat without dropping shishi.
Trust me, if Chief Amori had given those charlatans as little as #5K (five thousand naira) only on that day b4 returning to his seat,they would have torn themselves to shreds and the event would of course have been peaceful.
However, that didn’t happen and these insane clowns then decided to remain in the venue and cause a distraction that would attract the Governor’s attention.
Well,imagine you were Friday Ani, hosting your Governor in your backyard only for some weightless ferries to attempt embarrassing you? Well, that was how he asked his boys to extract those clowns from the Arena.
The boys carried out orders,the clowns ran straight into the hostel and raised the war call,students having their siesta and those coming back from lectures were confronted by the call to battle and all hell let loose.
By the time the dust settled, a student had fallen,5 were down and properties worth millions of naira had been destroyed. What was to follow was a well coordinated reprisal attack that exposed me to the deep fault lines of the Nigrian Political elites.
Some Governors and Deltans of high public standing had seen an opportunity to pursue their desire to curtail the growing political profile of the then Governor, James Ibori.
They therefore provided access to Aso Villa and the Lagos media, funding of a well planned PROTESTS that would eventually degenerate into RIOTS and lead them to a Fiat accompli, the declaration of a State of Emergency in Delta State.
“It took the deft negotiation skills of Doc.Emmanuel Eweta Uduaghan,Honourable Commissioner for Health(as he then was),the Honourable Doc.Chris OGHENECHOVWEN and Chief Efe Christopher AKPOBI to curtail the situation until a peaceful resolution was eventually reached.
However, the dead Mr. Charles Afigo stayed dead and those physically deformed continue to live with the TRAUMA of March 7th.
Yet none of those 7 clowns who called for the protests sustained even a scratch. *They instigated a war and bolted to safety at the sound of the first horn.*
*THE 1999/2000 SHARIA PROTESTS ACROSS THE NORTHERN STATES.*
“I am sure you all recall how simple protests for the full implementation of Sharia law in some Northern States eventually led to riots that culminated in the loss of thousands of lives and the destruction of billion naira private/public investments/infrastructure.
“From the short trip we have made down the historical lane,you can see how UNCOORDINATED PROTESTS always end up as riots with disastrous consequences for the common man. I therefore urge all our friends resident in Nigeria to resist joining any UNCOORDINATED PROTESTS.
“Their definition of HUNGER is not the one familiar to you and I.
Their own “HUNGER” is that which makes a supposedly educated and/or learned individual become a primitive stone age glutton.
Their own HUNGER means using the backdoor to grab political power after losing an election.
“These “hungry” people are simply “hungry” for political relevance and are using our collective frustrations to weaponise their inordinate ambitions. *Say no to UNCOORDINATED PROTESTS and yes to PEACEFUL ASSEMBLY!!!*
