This week, I’ll focus on the Facebook group that has been at the centre of much of the Occupy Nigeria discourse. This is a story of three writers, Jeff Unaegbu of Nsukka, Gimba Kakanda of Minna, and Richard Ali of Jos, who met last November at the Abuja Association of Nigerian Authors convention, and continued their conversation about changing Nigeria on Facebook.
On 2 January, after the New Year’s Day fuel subsidy removal announcement, Richard paid N100 for what was formerly a N50 taxi ride across Jos. When Gimba heard the story, he started the Facebook group “Nationwide Anti-Fuel Subsidy Removal: Strategies & Protests.” Jeff suggested that they should try to amass a large group of supporters. They were shocked at how fast the group grew. As Richard put it, “We started adding people. Before you knew it, we were having 300 people a day, 400, 500, a thousand people a day, and it kept growing.” In a week it had grown to 20,0000.” By the time I turned in this article, the group had 22,918 people.
The motivation, the founders told me, was not just the fuel subsidy removal. Although the dramatic increase in prices spurred them to create the group, the space hosted larger conversations about the nation that were also being discussed in the streets. Although Oxford economist Paul Collier offered condescending analysis of the #Occupy Nigeria protests as thoughtless and reactionary, the discussions in the group and elsewhere demonstrated that the mass protests were grounded as much in outrage over government corruption and lack of transparency as they were over the fuel subsidy. Richard told me the Pan-Nigerian group was committed to dignified, non-violent protest, “The idea was that government policies have to be based on social justice, and that corruption has to be cut down. Public officials are overpaid, and it doesn’t make sense for them to get such jumbo allowances, and then the common man, who if he’s lucky earns only 18,000 a month, has to pay the cost.”
As with other Facebook groups, members posted gossip and jokes, but they also critiqued the extravagance of the presidency, the enormous pay of National Assembly members, and proposed concrete plans for how to improve Nigeria. One member, Sunny Enji, wrote: “Just for the simple fact that both ministers of petroleum and finance were so convinced that the removal of the oil subsidy in Nigeria could only affect the privileged less than 30% Nigerians that own cars makes me believe that Nigeria is yet to have able hands to run the country. […] Since this respected WORLD BANK lady could not see the excruciating burdens and pain on ordinary Nigerians in all aspect of their lives, I now know why the World Bank is failing and could not made any serious impact on nations to move forward. They have book and robotic sense but lack the free and common one. For this president to survive this test, he must go back to the drawing board with better brains.”
The space also became a way to let other members know what was going on in the rest of the country, protesters in Abuja, Bauchi, Ibadan, Ilorin, Jos, Kano, Katsina, Lagos, Owerri, Port Harcourt, Sokoto, and elsewhere uploaded photos and made comments about their protests. It was here that I first saw the moving photos of Christians protectively circling Muslims while they prayed, and Christians and Muslims marching arm in arm. It was here that I read some of the most passionate cries for unity.
Godwin Clement wrote, “I am most ashamed of the reprisal attack, if it is reprisal at all in Benin. Benin Muslims did nothing to have such madness visited on them. […] Boko haram is our common foe, both Christians and Muslims. We must not allow thugs to mar our attempt at unification.” Safeena Buhari wrote, “Attempt made by the pastor of Christian apostolic church situated directly opposite […] mosque in Bauchi state, to flee back to the south out of fear of attack/counter attack were met with resistance from the central mosque Imam and relevant elders[…]. The people of the town have resolved to give the Christian minority the maximum protection it deserved at this trying period.” Mujahid Yusuf wrote, “Fellow comrades. Have you noticed that this subsidy issue has a good side? Subsidy removal has ended by making us more Nigerians than before. It has made us more patriotic and nationalistic bridging ethnic and religious lines.”
Although there were some cranks who posted hateful rhetoric, Richard told me that out of over 20,000 members, they only had to ban 30-35 people for consistently incendiary language. “That shows there’s a centrist position” he said–that the group is representative of most Nigerians.
The Facebook group is not merely an online hangout. Richard, Jeff, and Gimba told me that they plan to form a non-partisan organization that will grow beyond the internet. On 16 January, following the news of the compromise between Labour and Government, Jeff referenced Soyinka in a note titled “We Must Set Forth at Dawn”, “I noticed that most people want our group to be renamed and made to become a watch dog of government, checking its excesses, influencing general public opinion on matters pertaining to governance. […]We must understand that with maturity, comes more responsibilities. We have to look into ASUU strike now too. We have to look into curbing the extravagant lifestyles of government functionaries. We have to look into getting more members so that we truly emerge as a hypodermic needle that will always inject ideas into the masses […] We have just graduated from fighting a single evil to dealing with a multifaceted monster.” One issue that the group may take up is inter-religious community-building of the sort Gimba helped organize, standing with other Muslim youth to guard a church on 9 January. “It doesn’t cost me much to stand by for a few hours on Sunday to guard a church, and it wouldn’t cost a Christian much to stand by a mosque,” he said.
As for their position as activist writers, Jeff invoked Nigerian literary history, saying writers like Wole Soyinka, J.P. Clark and Chinua Achebe are still influencing the younger ones. “As with Marx, people perform the ideas that have been written,” he said. Gimba added that “The writer mirrors and exposes society.” Similarly, “this cause exposed many things going on behind the scenes—how our budget is being misused. It has united us under one umbrella.” The protests have “changed Nigeria for the better,” Jeff concurred. “People are not afraid to come out and feel more confrontational and democratic minded.”
Their meditations on the role of the writer to the masses made me think of that elusive quest in Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born and Helon Habila’s Waiting for an Angel for a generation who will overcome the crippling corruption and violence of the postcolonial state. Following Jeff’s note about the future of the group, Uwuma Precious wrote: “To Jeff Unaegbu, Gimba Kakanda, Richard Ali and the numerous folks on this wall, pushing for a better country for us all, I say; Mikani, méka, mékawè, buana, mbana, èsé, nagodé…….thank you!” It may be that the Beautyful Ones are here to stay.
