Hunger Protest: Why Do Nigerians Believe So Much In It?

Ahead of the August 1st to 10th planned protests in Nigeria, the atmosphere is already charged. Nigerian Government and its functionaries; security agencies, and political individuals have come out with stern reasons the protest must not see the light, fearing it could be hijacked and result in the similar violent outcomes of the October 2020 EndSARS protests.

 

Contrastingly, Premium Times reported that the organisers of the demonstrations tagged ‘10 Days of Rage’, aimed at piling up pressure on the government to address hunger and, generally, high costs of living in the country, have said it would not be hijacked by criminals if the police and other law enforcement agencies provide adequate security. But this condition doesn’t sync well with the Nigerian government and its agencies

 

The Acting Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, has described the protest as, “ill-timed,” even if it is peaceful. The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIG) has also planned to be “extra vigilant and step up surveillance,” because of “the protest.” The Department of State Security Service (DSS) promised to have “variously applied non-kinetic and conflict resolution strategies…to dissuade the planners from actualising their undesirable objective.” 

 

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The DSS’s statement particularly, makes it clearer as to the reason an X handle, Lagospedia, announced a curfew in line with a traditional Yoruba festival, Oro in Lagos. The announcement, which coincided with the date of the planned protests, has since gathered over 1.8 million views with different stakeholders organizing X spaces to address why the festival will hold and the protest must not.

 

Expressly, a report by the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) has dispelled the notion of the Oro Festival, citing the direct submissions of some traditional rulers in Lagos, stating otherwise.

 

Speaking on why the protests must not be held, on Sunday Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, said the protest is counterproductive and is often organized by frustrated politicians who couldn’t win elections, adding that youth should desist from joining the protest. 

 

Governor Alia of Benue State has also drummed support for Governor Abiodun’s statement with an outright subjugating declaration that protests will not hold in the State. Delta monarch as well, says Nigeria cannot afford another Endsars, while Ondo youth have reportedly rejected the hunger protest, saying it is “politically motivated.”

 

Protests are constitutional in any democratic country. But some Nigerian stakeholders want the existence of it as good as gone. In another effort, out of the several ones made, to stop the proposed protests, Folashade Tinubu-Ojo, President Bola Tinubu’s daughter and Iyaloja General of Lagos, told Lagos sellers on Sunday that there would be no such thing as protests in the state.

 

Rabiu Kwankwaso, the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) 2023 presidential candidate, was among the ‘advisors’ who advised Nigerians to not protest while beckoning to use their votes to protest in the coming years. Worthy of note, Kwankwaso was one of the former governors accused of corruption between 1999 to 2003. Kwankwaso was individually alleged of N109b fraud.

 

Meanwhile, away from all the pieces of advice and subtle threats, what the so-called advisers do not know is that as long as there is hardship mostly caused by economic crises and bad governance, Nigerians may not be able to stop protesting. Worst of all, protests in Nigeria often grow wings when governments turn deaf ears to the pangs of citizens.

Nigeria and the History of Protests

 

From almost the beginning of the territory called “Nigeria”, protests have always been the chief tools for expressing public grievances to the government in power. As far back as 1929, when a protest of Aba women against tax levy, degenerated into a violent riot, leading to the deaths of many women—even at that—protest and Nigerians have always been completely inseparable. One single reason is that Nigerians have never had a government immune from economic hardships and bad governance.

 

Protests, believed to be the ultimate solution to accentuate the masses’ pains, have notable effects: They distract the government and force it to pay attention to the grievances of its citizens. This is expected to orchestrate its drastic response to the matter at hand. But the Nigerian government in recent times is not seeing it that way. Force, abuse, harassment, imprisonment and death are the significant action points lording over the responses “Peaceful Protesters,” have gotten so far. But in history, this was not so, except a protest degenerated to violence, leading to riots and vandalism. Peaceful protesters don’t often retaliate if they were not assaulted, shot or ‘teargassed’ first.

 

Interestingly throughout Nigeria’s history, Nigerians often take protests as their last resort when there is a perceived misgovernance, public mistreatment, hardship and unattended public interests. They hoped with protests, the government would be forced to obey their bids and many times, this tactic often works. For example in 1947 the late Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti led Abeokuta women to protest against an unfair tax regime. This protest led to the abdication of the then Alake of Egbaland, Oba Sir Ladapo Ademola II and the abolition of the tax regime by the colonial government. 

The hike in fuel price, which has always been the chieftain of a Nigerian protest, led to another protest in 1994 under the military regime. The protest blew hot first in Kaduna and spread across all parts of the country. The protest was, however, peaceful, with no damage to vehicles or attacks on police officers. The protests even yielded some drastic positive changes to government policies, under the military regime, then. The interesting part of this was all security agencies were supportive, unharmed. This same scenario played out in Lagos when Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) protested. 

 

Between 2004 and 2005, another heated protest sharply slithered across the country. It was a protest against the Government of the former President, Olusegun Obasanjo for several reasons bordering on the hike in the fuel price from 50.50 naira to 65 naira; failure to pay the pensioners arrears and withholding of Lagos State Local Councils’ Allocation. But the president then, did not flinch a bit even when top stakeholders of Nigerian governments joined the protest, home and abroad. This protest too did not have any security agencies recorded to have mounted an assault on any protesters.

 

Perhaps, protests started to become sour for Nigerians in 2010.  Archivi, an organization that archives Nigerian newspapers, archived that a 2010 workers’ protest against the federal government to pay the N18,000 minimum wage, had one of the leaders of the protest, who was the Edo State Chairman of the National Union of Air Transport Employees, shot while at the Murtala Mohammed Airport to lead his protesting squad. The shooting was foreign, but NLC Comrades were so convinced then that not even the cry of bullets could make them stop the protest.

Such a scenario played out in October 2020 with the Endsars protest, which was a protest to end police brutality and bad governance. Peaceful Protesters saw more dastard attacks, which were quite foreign to their chagrin. Over 77 deaths and countless injuries were recorded. 

 

It started with Jimoh Isiaq in Ogbomoso, Oyo State, who was just an onlooker, sniped and denuded of dear life by the Nigerian Police bullets. It was surprising but Nigerians never knew, more was coming until there was a screech of the Lekki Toll Gate Massacre, which shuddered over 77 peaceful protesters’ lives to a halt. Obianuju Catherine, a Nigerian disc jockey popularly known as DJ Switch, who livestream the massacre was one of those under siege by the Nigerian government as a result of the peaceful protest and the livestreaming of the massacre.

 

Funnily enough, when a protest led to the assaulting of a House of Rep, and another with pilgrims threatening a commissioner to be stoned in 2010, nobody shot or gave a subtle threat that peaceful protesters’ protest was even “ill-timed.”

 

Between 2004 and 2007 when Oyo State became a ferocious lair of Chief Lamidi Adedibu’s thugs, to the point of ceasing the Oyo State Assembly, in the name of protest, police were just so silent. It becomes so worrisome. 

 

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