EndSARS: Can Nigeria be saved? (I)

The genie is out of the bottle. Massive as the destruction of lives, properties and the disruption of normal activities accompanying the EndSars protest across the country have been, they are just a shot across the bow of the Nation.

Everybody from the protesters, the government and indeed all Nigerians has come out of it bloodied. Lives have been lost from both sides; livelihoods have been destroyed some for life, and reputations have also gone aground.

Most significantly like the fall of humpty-dumpty from the wall, as a country we have moved up several notches to unheard of levels from our normal but manageable levels of intolerance and mutual suspicion. Nigerians now are literarily at daggers drawn with each other, primed and preparing silently and ominously for the next convulsion.

There are ticking time bombs everywhere set to explode in no distant future; between the Southsouth and South east over the activities of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), in the Southwest against IPOB and northerners, and in the north against Southerners generally in the event of further violence against northerners in the south. Add this to the already existing ones of the Boko haram terrorism in the Northeast, unrelenting banditry in the north and the herdsmen-farmers killings in the central parts, you then have a combustible broth that will likely sooner or later explode into one  big bleeding orgy of violence that may finally and totally destroy the country.

The next convulsion will not only involve Nigerians going at each other’s throats, there will be a heavy and clear involvement of foreign parties as well. The foreign contingent will be here not necessarily to help any of the Nigerian parties in the conflict, but to advance their own interests at the expense of Nigerians.

The Endsars protest has already set the stage for this happening. First of all the government and its institutions were not only caught unawares, there were little or no efforts at coordinating an appropriate response. For lack of a clear cut response, functionaries of the government dithered from appeasement to keeping away from the limelight as the protests raged on and the protesters took on the higher moral and political higher ground. The entire government was paralysed and at odds.

The sense of panic was so palpable that some functionaries of the government were already making discreet arrangements with some foreign embassies for a soft landing. The National Assembly sensing that the protesters were probably planning to storm that arm of government latched on to the only card left; calling on the President to address the Nation in order to douse the tension.

Secondly with the protests resulting in the Police being demoralised, dispirited and disillusioned, the country’s first line of law enforcement and security was virtually knocked out. And with the country’s last line of defence, the military under unwanted spotlight by both local and foreign entities, it would have proven too risky to deploy them even if the situation had escalated to unacceptably dangerous levels.

Under these circumstances, had the protest continued for a couple of weeks more, it was anybody’s guess what would have happened to the government and the country.

What clearly saved the government and Nigeria was the address by the president which to a very large extent helped to calm and reassure frayed nerves, as well as the fact that the major world powers who had shown a great deal of interest initially in what was happening, had through the assessment of their intelligence operatives concluded that the reported alleged involvement of the Nigerian armed forces in the alleged massacre of protesters at Lekki was false. Had there being a confirmation that the military was involved the government would have by now been on its way out.

As it is we have only postponed the evil day. With our police now on the back foot and our armed forces on pause mode caused by the attention of foreign and local parties, the government is not only a lame duck, but a sitting one as well vulnerable to the machinations of foreign interests and their local collaborators. Nigeria is now well and truly in the cross hairs of foreign predators who smell the prospect of a feast in the making.

Let us look at the line-up of the foreign predators and their possible reason for wanting to have a go at Nigeria.

Great Britain; the former colonial power that likes to celebrate India and Nigeria as the two greatest success stories of its colonial enterprise. Having pulled out of the European Union in an acrimonious fashion in what is seen as a desperate economic gamble full of uncertainties, Britain has targeted a linkage with its former colonies as one of the pegs of its post-Brexit life. Being one of its crown jewels, Britain would be averse to see a break up of Nigeria, but would not mind if our leaders and the country is put through some moments of ‘’high jump’’ knowing full well that our elites would always run to ‘’mama’’ at the slightest indication of trouble. That way the ‘’perfidious albion’’ would gently wring our hands and ask for more trade and commercial concessions in the interest of ‘’our long term history of mutually beneficial relations’’, all ending in a state banquet somewhere in London where the mop haired British Prime Minister Boris Johnson probably in a rumpled suit, after a generous helping of his favourite ale and with a sideways nod and wink to a colleague raise a glass for doing one over the ‘’chaps with a watermellon face’’ as he likes to refer to Africans.

It probably points to why the UK authorities have allowed the activities of individuals like Nnamdi Kanu and Adeyinka Grandson in order to put the squeeze on Nigerian authorities and create a sense of panic. The more the Nigerian authorities get hot under their agbada on the strength of Kanu or Yinka’s quixotic, loony tunes of breaking up Nigeria, the more the ante is upped. The duo is probably being secretly funded by Vauxhall to do what they are doing as part of the British grand design to achieve its post Brexit aims in Nigeria.