Without mincing words, the perception of the entire world about governance in Nigeria is been given a much clearer picture through the ongoing #EndBadGovernance protest.
Even as the federal government is absorbed in how best to represent the protest as actions of defiant youths, who lack patience and understanding of the dynamics and challenges of governance, some others, also in the government circle have posited the protest as the handy works of election losers, surreptitiously instigating the youths to register their disapproval of the political party and government in power.
Nevertheless, as the world is astonished by live videos of the protesters, it is privileged with the most convincing and acceptable side of every story. The story is more understood as a nationwide displeasure with pervading hunger, not occasioned by any natural disaster like draught, earthquake and the likes, but mainly through the mismanaged policy of fuel subsidy removal, traceable to the current regime of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Today, what the world perceives of the regime of Tinubu is like hearing the revelations of a female child, who comes out on the street to tell the public, how her father has been sexually defiling her in the closet; while the voices appealing to the protesters to rescind their action is tantamount to suppressing the faults of the abusive father with the excuse of his being the one providing the child with accommodation, feeding and paying the school fees; and therefore ultimately means well for the child.
Wherever the media beams its light on mass suffering due to the government’s policy; no matter how unintentional the regrettable fallouts are, it is given the colouration of an open wound, which source suffers global concerns and condemnation, casting doubts about the existence of democratic values or respect for human rights.
Democratic values are strengthened through an unwavering disposition to always do the people’s will; which should never be transported on the wings of how a government thinks highly of itself or the opus of its hidden knowledge. And should there be a need to go through any painful route before arriving at a blissful side of the journey, it becomes lesser and understandable to bear when the needed sacrifices are borne by all.
Quite frankly, democracy does not permit everybody’s wishes to be fulfilled; no matter how each voice desires to be heard and satisfied, yet democracy is inherent with the brilliant process of receiving and refining desires to produce the most meaningful and useful voices which are delivered through the instrumentality of the elected representatives. Also worthy of note is the evidence of a failing democratic practice, which presents as distrust capable of pushing the citizens to bypass channelling their desires and pains through the elected representatives in like manner of the current #EndBadGovernanceProtest.
While the world awaits Nigeria to get the management of its human and material resources right, it is yet doubtful to expect those in political offices to keep having their heads held high up with an increasingly fractured relationship between the rulers and the ruled.
As the involvement of protesters gets enriched by the widening social stratification and geographical spread, the continued audacity by government to keep offering the citizens the same remediation of promises they are complaining of asphyxiating them and muting their consciousness of a shackled living, it would no doubt start portraying Nigeria’s government as a repressive regime which the comity of nations would prefer distancing itself from.
In the era of globalisation with high-yield mutual gains, Nigeria cannot afford to be perceived as a pariah State. As a nation emboldened with the aspiration to keep establishing itself in worthy indices of global reckoning, it can avoid the pitfall that its seemingly defiant hubris makes it appear against the people, whose patience has long been sapped, only sufficient to prevent an early grave-bound journey.
Apart from the seeming stance of ‘only we know the solutions to Nigeria’s problems’ by the current federal government, like others before it; what makes the situation more abhorrent is that Nigeria has unfortunately been fated with governments better described as putting ‘new wine into old wineskins’
A government that undermines the intelligence of its vast number of youths that are breaking new and difficult grounds in global ventures; and yet insisting on the right to plan and decide the future of a country most likely to outlive their existence, sadly to the dismay of the youths which have been conquering notable terrains to showcase the real ‘hope.
Another painful aspect of the Nigeria scenario is that government is with the mindset that those currently protesting are expecting it to do the magical. That is the magic of fixing Nigeria overnight. Whereas such a perception of government is far from being the truth, a good crop of youths can actually deliver a vast array of solutions to Nigeria’s problems through technological inputs and more.
Such youths are not demanding to be handed political powers, but inclusiveness, because it is regretful to be forcefully subjected through difficult challenges you can boast of solutions to, in the midst of a lack of conviction in the actions of the government being capable of delivering the desired goals.
In the days ahead, it would be interesting to learn about the treatment and reception offered to Nigeria’s political leaders, who are fond of traveling abroad for all sorts. With the apparent neglect of a large number of its citizens dying as a result of poorly managed government’s policies, therefore they should not be too hopeful of an ease walk-through foreign graces.
Gatekeepers News is not liable for opinions expressed in this article, they’re strictly the writer’s
