First, from the South-East came the announcement by Ohanaeze Ndigbo that the Igbo people will not participate in any protests, planned or not. As far back as July 16, 2024, Ohanaeze Ndigbo in a statement issued by its Secretary-General, Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro, explained the organisation’s position by referring to historical incidents where Igbo people have suffered disproportionately in the aftermath of major protests and riots.
So, the protests began last Thursday, August 1, and according to the organisers, will last till August 10. That means we can still expect protests tomorrow, even though there has been significant palls in the tempo of the protests in many parts of the country.
In the days preceding take-off of the protests, government machinery went into overdrive in a bid to prevent the event from holding. There was quite a mix of activities, from outright threats to moral suasion, from cajoleries to inducement against, and subtle threats to plain begging by people in government and outside of it. Traditional rulers were very active, deploying whatever instruments of coercion they possess to discourage youths in their domain from trooping onto the streets in protest. In the parts of the country where the protests did not gain traction, this was because of a mix of fear, inducement, and other subtle instruments of coercion.
While the protests lasted, a few events sent ominous signals about cohesion of the country, as it became obvious that the political class might have succeeded in driving divisive wedges between people who have learnt to cohabit with each other over the decades.
First, from the South-East came the announcement by Ohanaeze Ndigbo that the Igbo people will not participate in any protests, planned or not. As far back as July 16, 2024, Ohanaeze Ndigbo in a statement issued by its Secretary-General, Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro, explained the organisation’s position by referring to historical incidents where Igbo people have suffered disproportionately in the aftermath of major protests and riots.
“Reflecting on the poignant history of the Igbo people in Nigeria, particularly in the aftermath of significant riots and protests… It is evident that Igbos have often been unfairly treated as sacrificial lambs amidst the turmoil,” Isiguzoro stated. And true, there were no protests in all the Igbo states of Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi, Imo, and Abia. This is despite the fact that prevailing economic indices seem to be biting harder in the region than some other regions. For instance, there is nowhere in the South-East that petrol is sold for less than N650-700, unlike the South-West, where NNPC stations still sell for N568. The withdrawal of Ndigbo participation in the protests, for me, was ominous, and should worry politicians from other regions.
Another disturbing optic was the use of Russian flags by some protesters up North. Russian flags? To what intent and purpose? In fact, a tailor sewing the flags was arrested and paraded by the Police. The ordinary man on the street might ask: Wetin concern Russia with our wahala? But things are not always what they seem, and we are not alone in the world. The truth of the matter is that the Russian bear is in our backyard, growling, as it prances about. We may have been unwittingly drawn into a situation we did not envisage. The political situation in neighbouring Mali, Niger Republic and Bourkina Faso saw the French, which had lorded it over Francophone West Africa, getting kicked out of the region by the emergent military governments in those countries.
Subsequently, they’ve been leaning towards Russia. Nigeria has an ambitious gas pipeline project to take our gas across the Sahel and the Sahara to Morocco. With Russian gas shut out of Europe in the wake of the Russian conflict with Ukraine, a pipeline to take Nigerian gas through the Sahel and Sahara to Morocco, from where it can be hopped across the Straits of Gibraltar into Europe is not a bad idea. But now that Russia is gaining traction in the Sahel after the exit of France, that project is threatened. But Russian flags during a Nigerian protest? A red herring? I leave it all to our specialist intelligence agencies to unravel. Same thing for the Spaniards arrested. Nevertheless, it is a disturbing optic; a major one!
That is not all. Videos of protests, especially from Kano, Kaduna and some other Northern towns reinforced my belief that the protest might be hijacked by hoodlums who would unleash mayhem on the rest of us as happened during the #EndSARS protests. I saw an urchin, in a video, climb a street light and started hacking it. The retard hacked off the street light and carted it home. For what use? He obviously can’t get a buyer for it. Why destroy such important traffic infrastructure? In yet another video, I saw another retard dragging away the signboard of a Police station. What will he do with it?
The most disturbing optic was the August 2 tweet on X (formerly Twitter) which was asking the Igbo to leave Lagos. Though strenuous efforts are being made to diffuse the tensions and apprehension generated by that senseless message, it must be noted that it was an incendiary tweet that Nigeria does not need, not just at this time, but forever. With that in mind, the political establishment in Lagos, presided over by Mr President himself, must take responsibility for the warped mindsets generating such incendiary messages. And it did not start just now; it began quite some time ago, and gets very ugly at each election cycle. These are disturbing optics, and people in the corridors of power should see them for what they are, and do the needful, in the interest of Nigeria. TGIF.