EndSARS: Can Nigeria be saved? (II)

The United States of America: Things are not looking too good for the Americans globally. With China breathing heavily down their necks on the global economic and geostrategic stage, the Yanks have become paranoid, nervy and even petty on issues pertaining to their foreign engagements. Nowadays the Americans see everything happening in the world in terms of ‘’ Us vs China’’ and they are on the lookout balefully for any country or group of countries that seem to cozy up to China no matter how innocuous.

In Nigeria, the Americans are not happy that we have signed up to China’s ‘’belt and road’’ initiative of delivering infrastructure projects to countries around the world willing to take it. The Americans would also not look with favour our signing up for loans with China for development projects in the country. They would prefer that our railway projects be handled by American firms Amtrak or Burlington Nodes rather than the Chinese. In the present truculent mood in America, any tending towards any engagement with China is almost akin to a declaration of war and countries involved in this are likely to incur the wrath of Uncle Sam.

Nigeria’s relationship with America even at best of times have never been hundred per cent warm. This has to do principally with Nigeria not always willing to align fully with America’s definition of its geostrategic interests in Africa which Nigeria as the foremost country in the continent, sees differently. Add this to our China policy and we now see a lot of American ‘’bad belle’’ against Nigeria.

In this regard the Americans have tried to block the well- deserved reappointment of Nigeria’s Akin Adesina at the African Development Bank. The latest of such acts of bad faith against Nigeria was the blocking of the election of Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the Director-General of the World Trade Organization even after being overwhelmingly voted in by member countries of the body.

We should not forget that it was America that predicted the disintegration of Nigeria in 2015 by the assessment of their intelligence community. As is well known with the Americans, they cannot arrive at such conclusion abstractly without helping to bring it about one way or the other.

It came as no surprise then to find tell-tale signs of the involvement of a couple of American firms in the EndSARS protests.  Also the template of the protests bears the unmistakeable imprint of American template of destabilization in countries like Venezuela, Iran, Libya, Hong Kong, Syria and so on.

Internally there are strong indications that Nigeria faces tough challenges in the three years running up to the next election circle in 2023. The ever tense fault lines are opening up. Demands for the breaking up of the country once thought as pie in the sky dream are gaining greater traction with the perpetrators getting more and more daring in their plans to actualize it.

In perspective, the EndSARS protests were a new rage by the new age. We are used to street demonstrations or protests mostly by students of tertiary institutions or religious groups expressing their grievances over issues that are exclusive to them. But the EndSARS by organization and the manner it was carried out holds a lot of lessons about the state of the nation.

First of all it has shown the latent power of the youth who constitute up to 70% of the population of the country. It also shows clearly that this critical segment of our population is alienated in the scheme of things in the country.  Nigeria as presently constituted seems to have little or no plans for their future except as cannon fodder for the interests of the older generation. Through the EndSARS protests the youth have demonstrated that they could actually bring the country to its knees. Had their organization and mobilization been better in terms of linkages across the nation, the outcome of the protests would have been different.

Secondly, the EndSARS exposed the fundamental weaknesses in the institutions of the country. Even though the protests were about the excesses of an arm of the police, the entire structure of governance in the country was shaken to its foundation. While the protests lasted, the police, military, state security, the legislature and Judiciary across the country were all in one state of disarray and paralysis or the other.  For an interminable time the fate of the nation hung in the balance and all depended on president Buhari’s intervention.  Had the president chosen to stay mum and the protests continued for about a week or couple more, we will by now be talking in different terms about Nigeria.

The third important lesson to draw from the protests is that inexorably the common ground for sustaining the unity of the country is slipping away. Although the protests was principally about police brutality which affects all and sundry across the country, all the fault lines came to the fore prominently to exacerbate the situation. What this means is that there is an urgent need for us to find new vistas of staying together and transforming the country as the current situation cannot withstand the strains of our inherent contradictions.

Thus the pertinent question to ask then is; can Nigeria be saved?

Let us not complacently delude ourselves that there can be no eruption on the scale of the EndSARS protests going forward. The protests have exposed the weakness of our institutions and their inability to stand up to be counted in a situation of national crises. They have exacerbated our fault lines and showed that we are all too ready to turn against ourselves viciously over matters that should unite us.

Above all it has fired the imagination of our alienated youth that they can grind the nation and if they organized and mobilized properly they can actually topple the government.

Going into the next elections circle in 2023, these inherent weaknesses and contradictions will surely manifest in ways dangerous to the health of the country. Under the circumstances Nigeria will present itself as a tempting target for predatory action by foreign interests. With this combustible combination menacingly poised over us, even our famed resilience and Houdini act will be severely tested.  The stage will then be set for the Libyanization of the country.

It is a scary prospect that should jolt our normally self-absorbed elite to act in ways that should save the nation and themselves in the process. We are now between the eleventh and the midnight hour all wired up. The last protests were a shot across our bow. The next will be a shot amid ship.