Why are Nigerians going wild?

The current wave of discontent sweeping through Nigeria is swelling our social history as a nation but with an unfortunate tilt towards the negative traits. It presents us as a nation that is adrift, perhaps having lost its bearing and now searching for direction.  Nigerians are passing through hard times as a result of the government’s reforms.

There is hunger in the land, with poverty rising in both urban and rural areas. However, some of the responses or reactions to the situation indicate fundamental deficiencies in us as a nation.

I once asked a senior roommate at UNN, who was then a history/education student, whether there was anything called “Social History”. His answer was in the affirmative. Yes, there is a branch of history called social history, and it is so relevant to an understanding of the rampaging social discontent sweeping through Nigeria today, in the early days of 2024.

Social history itself has morphed from one definition or version to the other; from “old social history” to “new asocial history. But our working definition of it here is that provided by Wikipedia as “history from below”. It is the history of the ordinary people and their struggles for survival. It is history, but not devoid of the fanfare of the bourgeoisie that often dominates the history books. Social history is an inquiry into the making of ordinary people by the society in which they find themselves. In short, it is the story of the people versus the state that defines what citizens become.

In the future, the generations that will take over from the leaders of today will look back at what is happening in Nigeria right now with the help of a historical prism and be able to pass their judgment. Our governments have in part created the situation

A history of Nigeria in this 21st century will show the trajectory of the pauperisation of a people who otherwise should be enjoying the benefits of a land endowed with so much. It will present the social, economic, moral, and spiritual decline in Nigeria. In many ways, we are today worse off than we were 20 or more years ago. Rather than keeping pace with our peers, Nigeria has regressed steeply, falling behind others because those who have ruled us have placed more importance on their interests than that of the populace.

Our quality and standards of living have both fallen; our peers a decade or more ago have dusted us as we headed south on all indicators of human development. In the 2020 Human Development Index (HDI) report by the United Nations Development Programme, Nigeria dropped to 161 in 2019 from its position of 158 in 2018 out of 189 countries.

That version of the history of Nigeria will tell how a segment of Nigerians emerged whose identity is simply that of being urban poor or rural poor in the absolute sense. The World Bank from time to time reels out the various programmes of the government that, rather than improve their lots, actually dragged millions of Nigerians into absolute poverty. Consequently, Nigeria has contributed so disproportionately to the global pool of poor people. We even became the world capital of poverty as our governments succeeded in converting Nigerians to beggars.

Our social history will talk about policies that are intended to solve the problems of the poor but end up producing deeper poverty and more poor people, partly because those in search of such policies or the funds for their implementation, corner the funds and allow the people to wallow in penury. It will tell us about the widening divide that separates the poor and downtrodden from the rich, despite all the budgets of governments designed to help the poor. We should talk about how our urban centres have become examples of urban degradation with Nigerians living in slums unfit for human habitation.

But our social history will not just be about the pauperisation of the populace or the negative impacts of government policies only. Nigeria’s social history, say ten years from today, will tell the audience then how in 2024 it became risky to store products in warehouses. First, the government could accuse the owner of hoarding the products and therefore order a forceful break into the facility to confiscate the products. That is an example of trying to solve problems the wrong way, which sometimes worsens the problems.

But a more alarming development in 2024 Nigeria is the mutation that our society has undergone. We have become a people with an elastic ruler such that nothing now has an exact measure: everything now depends on how each person sees the matter. That is why it is now so easy for hoodlums or “hungry” Nigerians to break into warehouses to loot goods, especially food items, stored in such facilities.

This started from looting truckloads of goods on the highways. They would attack the drivers, force such vehicles to stop, and then take over the goods. These attackers take over the goods because they are hungry. The explanation is that they are looting to feed themselves.

From looting truckloads of food items, these marauding miscreants now invade warehouses, tear them down, and cart away whatever is located in such facilities. All these are being done under the guise of the poor feeding themselves. It is difficult to justify these acts or keep quiet while they go on, but those who engage in them argue that they are not the only ones doing so. The difference, they say, is that theirs is open to all.