Protests: The Vile Behind The Veil

The signs are looking quite ominous as clouds of destructionists are forming a storm, threatening thunders of violence, and a downpour of carnage, as they assemble under the pretence of protests to end bad governance, while their eyes are set on more sinister intent. These same players were behind the #Endsars protests that unleashed the most destructive protests we have ever seen in the country. Their cells have been reactivated and greased, and they are thirsting for blood once more. During those protests, public and private enterprise were stagnated, some burnt, others destroyed, never to be recovered again.

This happened in 2020, just a year after the 2019 elections. The actors are back again, strategically a year after the 2023 elections, thirsting for mayhem, organising innocent citizens to fight for good governance, while infact toppling the government, truncating our democracy, and balkanising the Federal Republic are their real agenda. Do not be deceived, they are covertly well funded and organised. They invoked the fires of the endsars protests and kept them alive with a well oiled machinery, serving barbecues, with a steady flow of wine and gin, while harbouring avenues for sexual misconduct by youths.

These actors, a lot of them abroad, have found ready mobs on ground, egging them on to unleash violence during the protests. They are doing it brazenly and openly. They are identifying human and infrastructural targets. They have blacklisted individuals that have spoken against the protests and have marked them for only God knows what. They are asking for addresses and locations of individuals both private and in government. Some agitators have openly offered the supply of assault weapons to Lagos and Portharcourt. Who mobilises weapons for peaceful protests? Their primed location seems to be Lagos. They intend to destroy targets that are of great economic value. They are publishing phone numbers of people for harassment and cyber bullying. Their demands for the protests? They want Nnamdi Kanu released. They want the constitution set aside. They have christened the protest ‘days of rage’! This is certainly a pledge of violence. They are moving from different parts of the country to urban areas especially Lagos to cause economic sabotage. They intend to block roads and airports to imperil every other activity. Don’t forget your LGBTQ covens that relish the idea of a country in upheaval, too weak to fight off their dream of normalising gay marriages in our society. This is the bitter truth about the majority of the herds of people organising these protests. They are mobilising crowds, printing T Shirts selling for N6000 and face caps for N3000. Online ads and posters are being churned out heavily and all these activities require a great deal of funding.

Don’t get me wrong, protests are within the rights of every citizen. They are meant to emphatically communicate the people’s position on government policy and whatnot. The general outcry from the country in the face of the high cost of living is very valid and well intentioned. The people are asking their government to do more to ameliorate their hardships and make life better for the common man. Importantly, this is a civic duty. There are innocent individuals that are rooting for the protests and genuinely want better from the government. They want life to be more affordable and seek answers from the government. I fully support these people and those questions, and I strongly believe that the government is up to the task of addressing these concerns. Government activity in the last week have impressed upon us that they are awake to these calls and are trying to implement far reaching solutions for both the short and the long term. Infact, the goals of the protests have actually been achieved from the growls and roars of the protests.

The innocent travelers in the protests must be wary of the undesirable elements that will infiltrate their ranks and their movement, to wreck havoc, for their own seperate agenda. The good people that want to march out to exercise their rights and civic duties are at the risk of having their questions contaminated by violence. As much as we want to do good by our fellow countrymen and our motherland, there are anarchists lurking around in good citizen’s clothings, asking for better governance on one hand, and beating drums of war on the other. Separating these anarchists from our innocent protesters is an impossible task. They are in symmetry with the good governance movement, but have added agenda and mayhem to unleash.

The innocent and genuine message of the protest has been sent and it has reverberated everywhere, including where it needs to be heard the most. We must not allow these wolves in comrades clothings to take over our innocent movement and turn it into an excuse to run the country aground. We are a few steps from a full blown war in the country if we decide to embrace the machinations of these groups egging us on from abroad. People that organise protests to burn down properties and hack people to death are not the people to lead us to any promised land.

Real protests are not organised and run by organisations. The devil is in the details of their approach. It has endsars 2020 written and signed all over it. Terrorists have signed into the protests unfortunately. It is left to us to have a country and salvage it and make it better together. Let us not allow them to take away what we have. If we do not learn the easy way from the mistakes of our neighbours, we will learn the hard way, God forbid.

–Tahir is Talban Bauchi.