#EndSARS: What would Pius Adesanmi say?

For the last seven days, I have been to a number of #EndSARS protests across three states — Lagos, Oyo, and Osun. I have seen first hand how passionate and resourceful the Nigerian youth has been on-ground and online. We have defied the odds. Risked our lives. Clenched our fist. Demanded an awakening of the conscience of our nation. And for this, I am grateful.

I have also spoken to a few people in authority and I know that those in power are fidgeting. I have watched the tides turn and prayed for the wind in our sail. It is all too emotional for me. I have long waited for a time like this when hope will be glaring for all to see that Project Nigeria is redeemable. I have discussed in low and high places how I believe Nigeria would be great in my lifetime.

In April 2018, when we broke the story on what President Muhammadu Buhari said at the Commonwealth Head of Government Meeting (CHOGM), and it led to the #LazyNigerianYouth revolt on and off social media, some suggested that the youths were now waking up and would take back the country at the poll in 2019. Hindsight teaches us that the story did not quite turn out that way.

Two years down the line, these “lazy youths” are showing the world what leadership means; coordinating a peaceful protest of epic proportions. The kind that even the oldest freedom fighters in our country have never seen before. Raising funds transparently, feeding protesters, creating a call centre in days, providing, legal, medical, and mental health services as pros. As if that were not enough, the youth are coordinating the same in Canada, UK, US, and virtually every country where there is a critical mass of Nigerians.

Watching all these happen this past week, I said to my friends again; “governance is not rocket science”. This time I added; “even if governance were rocket science, rocket science isn’t so difficult anymore”.

LAZY NIGERIAN YOUTHS UNITE!

About 48 hours ago, I saw the hashtag #LazyNigerianYouthsUnite trending on Twitter and I could not but remember the words of Pius Adesanmi, the late prophet-professor and social commentator who loved and scolded the Nigerian youth in the same measure.

When the news broke on what Buhari said at CHOGM in 2018, Adesanmi predicted that “Buharideens will cut, slice, rephrase, reframe, & deodorize this gaffe. They will question the intelligence of other Nigerians for calling it what it is”. He added that when they are exhausted they will say: “yes, he said it, is it not true? Go to hell”. Adesanmi advised “lazy youths” to refuse going to hell, but to “go and collect PVC”.

Since Adesanmi passed painfully in 2019, the youths have not found anyone to fill his specific shoes in social commentary; no Facebook and Twitter banter to explain the failings of the past in the light of the future. It is why at a time like this we are looking back to his works to see what he prophesied of our future. As a true disciple, I have reviewed some of his interventions, perhaps we can predict together what he would be saying to us from the great beyond at a time like this in Nigeria’s peculiar history.

#EndSARS AND THESE COLLECTIVE CHILDREN OF ANGER

Referring to the Nigerian youth as collective children of anger in 2013, Adesanmi said the only thing stopping us from making Nigeria great is “the brood of vipers running Nigeria” — “Nigeria’s institutions of corporate existence”.  He said when you rise to take your nation, they would call “you unpatriotic. In some of their more infantile rants, they call you a hater of Nigeria”.

In Lagos, Abuja, Benin, we have seen that plot by established institutions to derail us from taking our country back from the vipers; we have seen young people allowing themselves be hired to attack protesters, burn cars, attack prisons, destroy properties just to make the protesters look bad and shut down a movement whose time has come.

A very disturbing video with stomach-turning, anger-rousing content shows one ignorant young man (and this is me using very polite adjectives) threatening #EndSARS protesters in the presence of high-ranking police officers. This malnourished mind asked the police to clear the protesters from the street of Abuja in 48 hours — and swore that if the protesters are not cleared, he and his cohort will handle the protesters man-to-man.

A deputy inspector general of police gave them his response and promised to meet their needs. You shoot at the real protesters but you address the ones threatening to peaceful protesters. A nation of ironies.

Pius Adesanmi is unpredictable, but this much we can predict: he would side with Nigeria. Not those who pretend to represent Nigeria, but those who hate the status quo and want a better nation for themselves and their children. They are not like the boys in that video or those shooting and attacking peaceful protesters. They are not, as Adesanmi said, those who have “fallen in love with the oppressor and the oppressor’s corruption, the oppressor and the oppressor’s lies, the oppressor and the oppressor’s incompetence, and will defend him even unto death”.

While he would be immensely proud of the soro soke generation, Adesanmi will be angry at the few who have taken on the oppressor’s money to fight protesting Nigerian youths to maintain the status quo. He would hate the brood of vipers who send Sambisa boots to Abuja to scare youths wielding nothing but courage, placard, and a smartphone.

As we miss his analysis of a time like this, we can learn a few lessons he taught in the past for us to stay united, strategise, and hate Nigeria to greatness.

Follow Tijani on Twitter and other major social media platforms @OluwamayowaTJ.