WHY I FEEL THE WAY I FEEL ABOUT PROTESTS

THE ORIGIN

Normally, I am that person expected to walk the other way at the news of a protest. Not because I scare easily or run away from violence, much to my mother’s disappointment, but because I have come to understand that protests in this part of the world amount to nothing. If nothing, such activities are breeding grounds for justified police brutality, sexual harassment, theft, and possible death. A typical case of the Nigerian “who send you?”

Everything I know about revolution, human rights, and democracy are all foreign concepts best espoused on the pages of a book, and usually in a classroom. All that momentary high I get after reading Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason or Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged are only for the class. We bicker and argue, throw a couple of intellectually-appropriate jargons and that sums it. This little flicker never makes it out.

Our first attempt to protest against an unnecessary hike in school fees was sabotaged by a few smashed windows and total disruption of activities within the campus. The institution fought back, hard, sending us home for two weeks, at the end of which we paid 10,000 Naira as reparation fee, signed an indemnity form, and went back to classes humbled. It is also important to state that there was no reason given for the reparation fee, neither was there an explanation of what it was for. Also, we all hurriedly signed indemnity forms that we were not even allowed to read. In fact, it was made a routine thing. Something as normal as signing attendance list in class or registering your courses at the secretariat.

Being born Nigerian (and still living in Nigeria), experiences such as these follow you. Something as simple as voicing out your displeasure at how the breakdown of your school fees contains development fee and yet every student is mandated to pay development fee to the SUG office, can fetch you a bad reputation, or worse.  In school, it was a known fact that you could request for a remarking of exam scripts or ask to be shown your exam scripts. But such things were best touted as myths and are only steps never actually taken. And it doesn’t even stop here.

As youths we are moored in fear, fear of speaking out of turn, fear of disrespecting elders. And sadly, all politicians are elder statesmen. Our politics is deeply rooted in oppressing with the power of numbers, with the power of age, respect, and enabled ageism backed by the law.  As a young person below thirty and in politics, it is typically normal that your twenties and early thirties are the years of servitude and premium ass-licking. After all, it is said that you have to serve kings before you become a king. And even as king, you have to constantly hold this position over ‘less-deserving’ subjects until they become worth it, or never. This is the entire threshold of the legendary GodFatherism in Nigeria.

If we are any sincere, our political apathy should be the first thing on our CVs. The average Nigerian youth is almost not interested in what happens in which party, or who is attacking who. This is not because the numerous shameless display of gross ineptitude on both sides is now a routine we are all used to, but because it is a generally held belief that nothing ever changes not minding whom or which party is in power. All we want to do is to live, smoke, and die peacefully without being bothered with the unnerving affairs of governance. And if the ambition supersedes the apathy, we would struggle to leave home to a better place where we only get to celebrate our motherland on Independence Day.

The older generation-our parents also contribute to this. Beneath the thin veneer of familial responsibility and love for one’s parents, there is that shared jealousy and resentment on both sides that no one ever addresses. On the part of the older generation, lazy sums everything about us. Phrases like “indomie generation” and “you too dey press phone” come from places of resentment. It is as if they resent our laxity and how we smart our way out of everything, both qualities interpreted as laziness. On our part, we loathe them for their age-long inactivity that has contributed immensely to our ruin of a country, their totally dedication to things we assume should not matter, their very blatant and disgusting bigotry, and their drunk addiction to respect.

 But the older generation is not entirely to blame with their “leave it to God” attitude and good ol’ stories of how five Naira could feed an entire generation during their own time. These people were birthed and fed the gospel of hardwork, all the emphasis on “hard”. My boss at work would not fail to state how hard work got him where he is right now, hard there literally meaning working from dusk to dawn. Many times I am tempted to tell him to work smarter and not harder. I mean technology is solely meant to make lives easier, why the stubborn dependence on crude mechanics? 

Being young is synonymous with innovation, finding shorter routes that need less human supervision to get things done, and this is because our entire lives, dreams, and businesses are on our gadgets, and we’d rather spend all our time on them.

However it is their fault that our laws, societal expectations, public gaze, and civic responsibilities are hooked on trivial show of respect, leaders comfortable with addressing their electorates as “my children”, and the masses generally being powerless in the face of injustice.  

MODUS OPERANDI

As a country and a diverse nation of people, it is in our history to solve dire problems by either spending outrageous amounts on subtle rebranding, or going for a more colourful “mechanic paint over this old colour” show that gulps the billions in the nation’s reserve. When NEPA stopped working it got stripped for parts to form a new unit, PHCN. This unit still did not work and further gave birth to more units that still do not work.

All my life the Nigerian Government has always been that clueless. Constantly grasping at straws and embarrassing the whole nation while the world watches. Nigeria is the giant of Africa not because her greatness starts from home and overwhelms her neighbours, but because her greatness is only meant for strangers.  In Nigeria, every protest is deemed political, and eventually becomes submerged in the ruling party versus opposition party back-and-forth bashing. Every hope for the future is dead on arrival, some terminator dark fate shit.

AND NOW

I believe, with the assuredness of the Samaritan women, in the gospel of protests. I have tweeted more hashtags than I have ever done all my life, not exactly because I suddenly find twitter exciting but because why not!

For the first time, I am standing side by side with Bukky. The typical Yoruba girl I have been taught to seen as dirty, unreliable, and wicked. While Tanko is sharing the drinks and making everyone laugh. He is from the blood-thirsty North, and that alone should be enough to scare me but I’m too busy cackling to remember everything my mother ever taught me about people from other tribes.

Efficacy now has a new meaning and context for me. Seeing young Nigerians summon an ambulance within five minutes to carry an injured protester to the hospital did it for me. I believe in the change this indomie generation,

the “let us clean up after protest” generation,

this “I found a phone on the ground” generation,

this “we die here” generation,

this “soro soke” generation,

this “na protest rice sweet pass”,

this “queer lives matter” generation,

this “you fvcked with the wrong generation” generation,

this “abeg drop bitcoin address” generation.

Sincerely, I believe with all my heart and strains.