Soyinka criticizes Tinubu’s speech for ignoring the brutal crackdown on protesters. Read more about his strong stance and key points.

The President Bola Tinubu’s nationwide address has been criticized by Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka for its failure to acknowledge the violent suppression of #EndBadGovernance protesters by security forces.

Furious citizens of Nigeria flooded the major cities nationwide to express their grievances regarding soaring living expenses, immense hardships, starvation and destitution. They attributed these appalling conditions to government policies that eliminated fuel subsidies and initiated fluctuations in naira exchange rates.

Over the course of four days, several individuals lost their lives due to violent outbreaks during protests in various states. The state of affairs left President Tinubu concerned, prompting him to deliver his inaugural nationwide speech following the demonstrations. In it, he urged citizens to maintain composure and asserted that there would be no reversal regarding subsidy elimination.

Soyinka, in a statement released on Sunday, specifically condemned the measures announced by the President in response to the protests.

Soyinka stated that the government’s remedial actions to prevent an outbreak like this since its inception would undoubtedly be analyzed by experts for their effectiveness and content. However, his main worry was the state’s declining ability to manage protests which were not addressed in the presidential address.

Soyinka believes that the security agencies of the nation cannot feign ignorance about alternative models for emulation and civilized advancements in security intervention.

Unfortunately, when the deserving citizens are short-changed in their civic duties, it empowers security forces to act with impunity which results in a vicious cycle of resentment and revenge that seems impossible to break for the entire nation.

The key concern is the use of lethal ammunition by governments in response to civil demonstrations. Even deploying tear gas raises doubts, particularly when used against nonviolent protests. Hunger marches are a globally recognized call for help; they aren’t just specific to Nigeria and should be given their unique status despite additional slogans on banners.

These serve as invitations for governance to recognize that a critical threshold has been crossed, and therefore act as an evaluation platform for how well the government is aware of public distress. The sorrowful reaction towards recent hunger protests in some regions of the country, which were previously notified about, represents regression that pushes back progress even more severely than what occurred during the tragic outcome of the significant ENDSARS protests.

He stated that it brings to mind the disrespectful actions of colonial times before independence, as seen in Hubert Ogunde’s folk opera BREAD AND BULLETS, which resulted in persecution and banning by the colonial government for its nationalist themes.

See the full statement below:

The HUNGER MARCH As UNIVERSAL MANDATE

I set my alarm clock for this morning to ensure that I did not miss President Bola Tinubu’s impatiently awaited address to the nation on the current unrest across the nation. His outline of government’s remedial action since inception, aimed at warding off just such an outbreak, will undoubtedly receive expert and sustained attention both for effectiveness and in content analysis.  My primary concern, quite predictably, is the continuing deterioration of the state’s seizure of protest management, an area in which the presidential address fell conspicuously short. Such short-changing of civic deserving, regrettably, goes to arm the security forces in the exercise of impunity and condemns the nation to a seemingly unbreakable cycle of resentment and reprisals.

Live bullets as state response to civic protest – that becomes the core issue. Even tear gas remains questionable in most circumstances, certainly an abuse in situations of clearly peaceful protest.  Hunger marches constitute a universal S.O.S, not peculiar to the Nigerian nation. They belong indeed in a class of their own, never mind the collateral claims emblazoned on posters. They serve as summons to governance that a breaking point has been reached and thus, a testing ground for governance awareness of public desperation. The tragic response to the ongoing hunger marches in parts of the nation, and for which notice was served, constitutes a retrogression that takes the nation even further back than the deadly culmination of the watershed ENDSARS protests. It evokes pre-independence – that is, colonial – acts of disdain, a passage that induced the late stage pioneer Hubert Ogunde’s folk opera BREAD AND BULLETS, earning that nationalist serial persecution and proscription by the colonial government.

The nation’s security agencies cannot pretend unawareness of alternative models for emulation, civilized advances in security intervention. Need we recall the nationwide 2022/23 editions of what is generally known as the YELLOW VEST movement in France? Perhaps it is time to make such scenarios compulsory viewing in policing curriculum. In all of the coverage that I watched, I did not catch one single instance of a gun leveled at protesters, much less fired at them even during direct physical confrontations. The serving of bullets where bread is pleaded is ominous retrogression, and we know what that eventually proves – a prelude to far more desperate upheavals, not excluding revolutions.

The time is long overdue, surely, to abandon, permanently, the anachronistic resort to lethal means by the security agencies of governance. No nation is so under-developed, materially impoverished, or simply internally insecure as to lack the will to set an example. All it takes is to recall its own history, then exercise the will to commence a lasting transformation, inserting a break in the chain of lethal responses against civic society. Today’s marchers may wish to consider adopting the key songs of Hubert Ogunde’s BREAD AND BULLETS, if only to inculcate a sense of shame in the continuing failure to transcend the lure of colonial inheritance where we all were at the receiving end. One way or the other, this vicious cycle must be broken.

 

Wole SOYINKA

A.R,I. Abeokuta