No matter how painful the past weeks have been and despite the damage done by an admixture of bad governance, bad choices, bad leadership and bad examples, all things have an end date. The #EndSARS movement and protests have birthed a chain of actions and created opportunities for real change and progress or Nigerians which progressive forces must leverage on to produce a better Nigeria.
Nigeria made its choice in 2019 with our eyes wide open and we must , for the time the law permits, live with it. One thing you cannot blame Buhari for is deception. Our president did not hide his feelings no cover up his plans. For those of us who are old enough to know and who were in Nigeria as adults in 1984, to claim that we were not familiar with the style, management and ideological inclination of the President, would be self deception.
It is my considered opinion that 2023 is a very short time to come and 2 years is not too long for a nation to prepare and plan for a better future. We have to be patient, and thankfully it is patience that has a definite end date. To believe that we can obtain #EndSARS demands from the current government and institutions as they exist today is another name for tomfoolery. Our expectations would be as realizable as expecting a pregnancy from a eunuch married to a barren woman. Even if Buhari wanted to , the current constitutional and structural enablers of Nigeria’s institutions, especially the police, the judiciary, the armed forces and the legislature will not allow for the kind of fundamental reforms needed.
I therefore urge that we shift the #ENDSARSNOW to a more cerebral rather than an overt or physical mode. It is time for planning and strategy not with a view to agitate but with a view to implement. The movement needs to get its hands firmly on the levers of legitimate government and power, first of all by building the necessary political platform required to do this and quickly followed up with actual head hunting for those with plans , capacity, responsiveness and experience, respectively to deliver the reforms.
It is also pertinent to note, as we have repeatedly advocated, that without #Restructuring, Nigeria, might as well continue to perambulate. We will not be able to restructure under this dispensation, as a matter of fact with each passing day this government and its legislative arm continue to deepen the centralization and unitarization of structures and resources with a view to accumulate all powers in Abuja, but if we wait patiently and plan diligently we can permanently reverse it for the good of all.
The task to #restructure Nigeria does not belong to this government, the task for a permanent #EndSARS cannot be undertaken by this government, but the movement has enabled the environment, laid down the justification and built the capacity to create a platform that can do this, and this is why I believe that , thanks to them, my 90 years old mother may yet see a Nigeria of her dreams.
As I have said before, continuing an overt struggle to #EndSARS is fast outliving its usefulness, and we appear to be giving space and excuse for retrogressive forces to take advantage. The life of one more person is unacceptable. Therefore let us go and prepare for a full scale democratic onslaught, a democratic revolution, that will see a complete flushing of the system including legislative arms of government.
This is time for our own #NigerianPerestroika to bring about our won #Nigerianglasnost Another chance is coming in 2023. They you fool me one ‘shame on you’, but you ool me twice, its ‘shame on me’…
Yorubas will say, Iya meji nii je Oku’gbe
May that not be our portion. Impatience and plan-lessness are the only things standing between us and a dream Nigeria.
SFB
