#EndSARS: A look from afar

(Link on Daily Trust site)

No sooner had the #EndSARS protests erupted in many cities in Nigeria than a free-for-all argument over it ensued. And from the sheer amount of emotion that characterized the argument on social media where one followed it, one could imagine its intensity in a typical joint in, say, Lagos or a typical roadside majalisa in, say, Kano.

Arguments for and against the protests were churned out right, left, and centre with many folks rightly or wrongly taking it personally, which provoked bad feelings among many and indeed caused strains in both virtual and real-life friendships. Many theories were equally speculated supposedly to explain the protests.

Though everybody claimed objectivity in his stand on the protests, opinions driven by underlying prejudices dominated the atmosphere. What’s, however, clear is that regardless of the logic or otherwise of any opinion expressed or theory speculated, the incidents of the protests and its aftermath represented a clue of the implications of lawlessness in the country. 

In other words, the escalation of the protests into indiscriminate vandalization of public facilities and jail storming, which resulted in the escape of almost two thousand prisoners, and looting spree of private properties and businesses among other acts of violence against individuals and communities was a mini-picture of what the situation in the country will turn into in the event of the total breakdown of law and order. 

Whether or not the masterminds of the protests and the protesters had a hidden agenda as widely alleged, or were simply being too reckless, their actions bore the hallmarks of a subversive agenda against the already fragile corporate stability of the country. The amount of recklessness shown by the protesters was rare if not unprecedented.

In any case, they had clearly manipulated popular discontentment over the persistently worsening economic and security conditions in the country, to incite the gullible into joining the protests, which also provided violent criminals lurking around with a pretext to perpetrate their crimes after blending with the protesters.  

The protesters equally won the backing of many otherwise discerning observers with many of them effectively turning into apologists for the protesters. Likewise, many others with underlying political and/or personal interests gloated over the situation under the illusion that it would only undermine the Buhari administration.  

Having said that, one has to admit that the protests had set in against the backdrop of accumulated popular frustration frustrating enough to trigger not only protests but a spontaneous revolt for that matter. And if not for the passionate dissuasion against joining the protests by many northern Nigerian influential figures and Muslim scholars who warned of a hidden agenda behind the protests, the protests would have swept across the region and the situation would have become far worse than what occurred in southern Nigeria.  

Because SARS brutality and whatever grievances that supposedly triggered the protests in southern Nigeria cannot be compared to the situation in the particularly poverty-ravaged northern Nigeria where people have literally resigned themselves to their fate in the face of government’s failure to protect them from kidnappers, bandits and terrorists unleashing death and misery across the region.

Anyway, with the particularly blatant show of insensitivity to the worsening plight of the people in the country by the very elite who have inflicted it on them over the decades, popular frustration will definitely continue to pile up towards the boiling point where no amount of dissuasion can prevent a complete and irreversible breakdown of law and order, God forbid.

The recent incidents of discovered warehouses housing tons of assorted foodstuff meant for free distribution to the poor as Covid-19 pandemic palliatives, which, however, somehow ended up hoarded to probably be misappropriated amid unprecedented unaffordability of foodstuffs in the country suggest the worst form of nonviolent callousness that leaders can exhibit.

Admittedly, while following (on social media) the viral videos of people storming and looting the warehouses, I was torn between two conflicting thoughts; the illegality of their acts, on the one hand, and emotional feelings justifying the acts at least for the desperate among them, on the other. After all, out of sheer desperation, many otherwise decent people partook in the looting spree. However, storming and looting personal properties, private warehouses and businesses, which many people carried out during and in the aftermath of the protests were absolutely unjustifiable. But then again, this is what inevitably ensues whenever and wherever chaos reigns. 

Nonetheless, though popular frustration in the land has understandably reached unprecedented levels, it must not be handled with emotions, for that will definitely lead to anarchy. Because given Nigeria’s ever-tense atmosphere of political, ethnoreligious, regional and resource control-linked tensions, a nationwide breakdown of law and order means the breakout of irreversible anarchy in the country.  

Even in the event of the situation deteriorating to a point where the country’s corporate existence is no longer viable, under no circumstances should anarchy be justifiably resorted to in the name of restructuring, secession or separation.

By the way, the assumption that Nigeria’s collapse would give rise to viable countries in some geopolitical regions e.g. the southeast and the Niger-Delta where this assumption is more popular, is too simplistic hence unrealistic.

Though unjustifiably fragile, Nigeria’s stability remains the only guarantee for the already grossly inadequate security of life, property and dignity that we take for granted, and in no circumstances should it be jeopardized for a romanticized post-revolution Nigeria that some reckless folks are promoting.  

The recent incidents should serve as a wake-up call to the country’s leadership elite to get committed enough to arresting the worsening popular frustration in the land by addressing its root cause, which is bad governance driven by the culture of corruption and impunity. Because, after all, in the event of overwhelming chaos, they, their families and properties will be the first set of targets. And even those who would manage to flee the country will have to endure the humiliation of living as glorified refugees in foreign lands struggling with legal prosecutions for corruption and perhaps crimes against humanity to the end of their lives. 

#EndSARS protests in context

 (Link on Daily Trust site)

Now that the federal government has replaced the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) with a US-styled Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit in a move to address the protesters’ demands against the particularly excessive brutality of the now-defunct SARS, the growing suspicions of some ulterior subversive motives behind the protests must equally be addressed. 

Before I address this point, however, it’s important to state the obvious about the rampancy of brutality among not only the police but all security enforcement personnel in Nigeria. The police are particularly notorious in this regard only because they are closer to the people. 

Police brutality in Nigeria is effectively legalized; it’s openly perpetrated in arguably all police stations in the country. It never started with SARS, and won’t end with its mere dissolution either.   

The average Nigerian police lacks the competence to interrogate a serious crime suspect without torturing him. On the pretext of interrogation, police interrogators torture suspects, which sometimes leads to their permanent disability and even death. In fact, some suspects under police custody are extra-judicially executed.  

This situation persists against the backdrop of the deep-rooted culture of impunity in the land as well as the societal inadvertent complicity. In Nigeria, an individual, depending on his real or perceived financial status or other privileges, can “hire” the police to frame up, arrest, extort or torture anybody of less status. It isn’t uncommon to see an individual bragging about his ability to settle scores with another by unleashing the police on him. 

Besides, many of the cases that involve police brutality against individuals are purely civil cases e.g. commercial disputes, which the police shouldn’t have got involved in the first place.  

Though there are decent and professional police personnel out there, the sheer rampancy of brutality among their colleagues overshadows the professionalism of those decent police personnel. 

Police brutality in Nigeria is simply too deep-rooted to be uprooted by the mere dissolution of SARS and replacing it with SWAT, unless if by so doing the Nigerian authorities are hinting that SARS brutality was sanctioned, which obviously wasn't the case. 

Checking police brutality, therefore, cannot be achieved in isolation; it can only be achieved within the context of a comprehensive reform that focuses primarily on imposing strict professionalism on the force personnel.  

While Nigerians have the right to demand and push for that, the ongoing EndSARS protests in some Nigerian cities, which were started ostensibly to demand the dissolution of the notorious police SARS unit continue to attract suspicions as they increasingly bear the hallmarks of a typical politically-motivated subversive movement. 

The suspicions have also increased with the insistence of the protesters to carry on even after the federal government dissolved the unit. Many observers who had initially dismissed the suspicions have begun to equally suspect possible ulterior motives behind the protests. 

Besides, the more one dismisses such suspicions, the more one sees compelling reasons to validate it on accounts of the protesters’ persistently raising demands, which have gone to the extent of inciting a revolution in the country, and also the obvious media exaggeration of the protests amid tacit endorsement by some public figures who interestingly come from the South-West geopolitical zone.  

In any case, whether the protests are originally politically-motivated or not, there are growing indications of some desperate élites trying to ride the wave and manipulate the protests for their political interests at any cost. 

Many theories in this regard are flowing right, left, and centre. In the light of the growing public discontent with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu’s ambition to be the next president of Nigeria is being seriously threatened by the growing possibility of Atiku Abubakar becoming the PDP’s candidate and eventually winning the presidency. 

It’s, therefore, quite possible that some interests groups hell-bent on averting that scenario are capitalizing on northern Nigerian establishment’s characteristic phobia about Nigeria’s disintegration to play the revaluation card as a blackmailing tool to politically blackmail the establishment into some kind of concession that would guarantee the presidency for Tinubu at the expense of Atiku.  

Unsurprisingly also, those agitating for separation in the South-East and resource control agitators are riding the wave to push for their respective agendas.  

Meanwhile, in northern Nigeria, the promptness with which the federal government bowed to the EndSARS protesters’ pressure and dissolved the unit was rightly or wrongly interpreted as an indication of its partiality against the region where many believe it (i.e. federal government) is reluctant to respond to public outcry over the persistent insurgency, banditry and kidnapping ravaging the region.  

Therefore, some northern Nigerian groups have equally called for protests to demand the end of insecurity in the region. As I write this piece (Thursday), I understand that a protest has already begun in Kano though it’s not clear how far it will go. 

However, it’s obvious that the call for protest in northern Nigeria was prompted by sheer emotion in order to spite the federal government.

While it’s high time that civil society groups in the region put maximum pressure on the federal government (within the ambit of the law) to address the persistent security concern in the region, they must not allow themselves to be manipulated by some unscrupulous groups and individuals pursuing subversive agendas disguised behind the facade of legitimate demands. 

The State Security Service (SSS) should handle this situation with the utmost seriousness before it’s too late. Nigerians cannot afford a total breakdown of law and order in the country; after all, should it occur, God forbid, only the vulnerable will bear the brunt while the elites escape with their families to safety in different countries around the world. 

Foreign governments in US politics

(Link on Daily Trust site)

As the United States presidential election draws closer, the atmosphere in the country is already pulsating with campaign activities. The first presidential debate last Tuesday between the two leading contenders, the incumbent President Donald Trump of the Republicans and Joe Biden of the Democrats has added momentum to the activities. Also, analyses and predictions continue to flow right, left, and centre.  

Meanwhile, many foreign governments are hugely interested in the election. By the way, though foreign involvement in the US elections is illegal, it's an open secret that many foreign governments have always been involved anyway. 

With the facilitation of literally all relevant US individual, institutional and corporate stakeholders, foreign involvement in American elections thrives thanks to the country’s ultra-capitalist system. 

Being the world’s biggest economy with the strongest military that, among other things, explain its dominant influence on global affairs, the matter of who occupies the Oval Office in the White House isn’t exclusively an American affair after all; it matters to many foreign governments, which have always invested hugely on various disguises through various US private sector establishments.

Depending on the prevailing circumstances at a given time, a foreign government may invest in support of one or both the candidates, for all what actually matters to it is the emergence of a friendlier, friendly or, at least, less hostile US president who wouldn’t undermine its (foreign government’s) legitimate and illegitimate interests. 

Equally, many foreign governments maintain lobby groups of influential individuals with strong and extensive connections in the corridors of the Congress, the White House, and other relevant US federal institutions, to lobby and push for legislation and policies on their behalf. 

Also, many otherwise reputable non-partisan think tanks in the US are often induced by lobbyists on behalf of foreign governments to prepare favourable or unfavourable analyses on a particular candidate(s) to subtly influence the US electorate in favour or against him. 

While some foreign governments only invest in US politics to pursue specific interests at specific times, foreign governments like those of Israel, Canada, China, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Iran, Russia, United Arab Emirates, Japan, Qatar etc. remain some of the regular clients of lobby groups in Washington. 

However, foreign governments that aren’t officially allies of the United States e.g. Russia, China, Iran, etc. maintain much more discreet approaches in this regard to avoid appearing vulnerable and at the mercy of the US policymakers.  

Anyway, now that the campaign for the 2020 US presidential election has peaked out, foreign governments interested in who wins between President Trump and Biden are already equally divided.

On the one hand, those who rightly or wrongly feel undermined or bullied by the Trump administration and have, therefore, invested for his defeat are eager to see him defeated. For instance, China, is, of course, looking forward to seeing President Trump defeated for being particularly tough on it in its lingering trade war with the United States. President Trump has over the past four years literally unleashed US economic might against China forcing it into making costly concessions and compromises. Earlier this year, he tweeted that the Chinese “are desperate to have Sleepy Joe Biden win the presidential race so they can continue to rip-off the United States, as they have done for decades, until I came along!”

Iran equally wishes President Trump lost the election. After riding the wave of an Iran-friendly and equally Arab-hating American president, Barack Obama for eight years within which the US turned a blind eye to Iran's expansionist adventures in the Middle East with the tacit support of his administration, the Trump presidency turned tough on it. 

He withdrew the United States from the UN Security Council-sanctioned nuclear deal with Iran, which rendered the deal practically ineffective despite the commitment of the remaining parties to the deal (i.e. Russia, UK, France, China, and Germany) to maintaining it. The deal would have enabled Iran to be a recognized nuclear power by 2030. He also restored the US sanctions on Iran reversing the economic recovery it had started to record following the ratification of the nuclear deal thereby triggering the persistently worsening economic conditions in the country. 

Interestingly, during the campaign for the 2016 US presidential election, and going by the then presidential candidate Donald Trump’s islamophobic/Arabophobic rhetoric, Iranians and indeed almost everybody for that matter assumed that if he won he would be extremely tough on Arabs. Iran, therefore, had thought that it would simply ride the wave to achieve its expansionist agenda in the region 

Now, other countries like Germany, Japan and South Korea, which President Trump extorts on the pretext of defending them probably equally wish he lost. Also, even the traditional US European allies, with the exception of Boris Johnson’s Britain, probably wish the same. 

On the other hand, foreign governments that have invested in Trump cannot wait to see Biden defeated. This is even though with regard to Israel, in particular, it doesn’t matter who is the American president anyway, because US commitment to protecting Israel's interests is simply too "sacred" to be neglected let alone undermined by any US president. Yet, Trump’s particularly enthusiastic support for Israel explains its preference for him.     

President Trump also remains Russia’s favourite; after all, Russia had all along supported him and hugely undermined Hillary Clinton’s chances through elaborate cyber-based espionage in 2016 and has since then got its way at the expense of the US interests as Trump watches helplessly knowing that it (Russia) maintains his election-related intelligence more damaging than what has been released, and which could cost him his position should it be fully released.  

Equally, Arab countries particularly the Gulf States e.g. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which have invested in Trump prefer him as a lesser evil compared to Biden who they suspect would be literally a reincarnation of Obama who vigorously supported the political turmoil that swept across the Arab world in 2011 on the pretext of bringing democracy to the region.