Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka has criticized President Bola Tinubu's nationwide address, stating that it failed to address the brutal crackdown on #EndBadGovernance protesters by security agencies. Across major cities, angry Nigerians have protested against the high cost of living, hardship, hunger, and poverty, which they attribute to government policies such as the removal of fuel subsidies and the floating of the naira.

In the past four days, the protests have turned violent in some states, resulting in several deaths. In response, President Tinubu delivered his first nationwide speech since the demonstrations began, calling for calm and reaffirming the government's stance on the subsidy removal.

However, in a statement on Sunday, Soyinka specifically criticized the President's actions since the protests started. He stated, "The President's outline of the 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.”

Soyinka emphasized that the nation’s security agencies should be aware of alternative, more civilized models of security intervention. He lamented, "Such short-changing of civic deserving regrettably arms the security forces in the exercise of impunity and condemns the nation to a seemingly unbreakable cycle of resentment and reprisals. Live bullets as a 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 a summons to governance that a breaking point has been reached and thus, a testing ground for governance awareness of public desperation."

Soyinka concluded by likening the government's response to the ongoing hunger marches to a regressive throwback to pre-independence colonial acts of disdain, referencing the late-stage pioneer Hubert Ogunde’s folk opera "BREAD AND BULLETS," which criticized similar colonial actions and earned nationalist persecution and proscription by the colonial government.

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 the 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 a 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

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