“…The Reed we were blowing is now crushed. When I spoke two markets ago in this very place, I used the proverb of the She goat. I was then talking to Ogbuefi Egonwanne who was the adult in the house. I told him that he should have spoken up against what we were planning, instead of which he put a piece of live coal into the child’s Palm and asked him to carry it with care. We have all seen with what care he carried it….
Culled from Chinua Achebe – Arrow of God…
Whenever you call for restraints from protesters, many who have never even listened to the sound of a gun fired in anger, will tell you it’s because you or yours have never been victim(s) of SARS. Interestingly, many of these people sharing loads of cynicism around are in the comforts of their homes or even in the embrace of their wives or parents while people’s children are reported as mortality statistics from the streets.
If some of these empty machos taste even a fraction of what some of us have been put through by the police or even sister agencies, they would have been in the streets – among the protesters wielding guns in place of placards. But because we know that everything has a price, just as we understand what a win is whenever we see one, we have been calling sensibly for a change of tactics. But, Twitter protesters holed up on the screen of their phones urging unsuspecting young men onto their deaths will have none of it.
For the umpteenth time, we wanted to end SARS! We tabled a list of demands, very sensible demands that have been accepted and government has even gone ahead to start developing policy direction on same. Exactly what’s the enduring ENDSARS protest still all about? In Kubwa, scores were injured while one or two met their end. In Osun, the governors convoy was attacked. Two died. In Anambra, the story is the same. How long do we think we can keep this up until somebody somewhere does something crazy that will require the excessive use of force to quell what at that point, will be simply dismissed as an uprising?
But even if we want to keep up the protest, must we block major highways, impeding on the rights of others in the name of protest? Before the majority of Nigerians quietly supporting this movement run out of patience, denounce the joke it is turning into, and lunch a real counter offensive, I urge those still fanning the embers of this civil disobedience to at least prevail on them to remain within the rules of engagement while also resisting the lure of power drunk syndrome already rearing its ugly head.
You want NASS bumper pay slashed? Wonderful idea. Occupy the National Assembly complex instead of the highway. You want all Governors still receiving dubious pensions to give it up? Besiege state Assembly buildings in every state until the relevant section of the law is reversed. Whatever you want can be worked out now that we are negotiating from a position of strength. But negotiations must be held sensibly between leaders. This is where there’s a problem as the protest has failed to produce one face of leadership. I fear for when public sympathy will dry out, forcing the growing number of protest merchants to withdraw. That’s when the headless chicken will be left to thrash wildly until it breaths its last…
Therefore, regardless of how much voices of unreason want to stay on this cause, they should remember that when the shit finally hits the fan, they too will be integrated into history as worthless elders who stood by as a she goat suffers the pain of parturition in a leash. We will remind them that as elders, they failed to counsel our youths on the dangers of inviting thunder without first providing the buffer of a white ram on a leash.
The entire Arabian gulf is burning today because they bought the lie that a complete faceoff with government elements is the only way to! Before we become another Sudan, we should heed the call of the falconer before all things begin to fall apart!
