How to hijack a protest

BY OMOLE IBUKUN

During the peak moments of #EndSARS protests on October 14, 2020, a social media activist, Segalink, made some tweets where he claimed that the #EndSARS protests have been hijacked by some ‘known elements’ in many locations in the country. He went further to describe the hijackers when he said ‘hustlers being controlled by the lust after money are playing games and throwing narratives around’. Since then, the Nigerian government has taken this cue to silence the freedom to protest and attack, arrest, and torture protesters.

In an effort the justify the Lekki massacre, the attorney general of the federation, Abubakar Malami, came out on October 22 the same year to say that the #EndSARS protests were hijacked by the separatist leader, Nnamdi Kanu, to kill security agents. This claim was made despite the exemplary organisation of the #EndSARS protests which only got disrupted when state-sponsored thugs in Lagos, Abuja, Osun, etc, started attacking protesters. In the words of the police, these hijackers were classified as ‘hoodlums’.

Earlier this year as the June 12 Democracy Day approached and Nigerians planned to protest across the country, different states warned citizens against the protests claiming that there was a possibility that the protest would be hijacked. One of the platforms that claimed to support the protests, the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), backed out of the protests with the claim to have suspended the protests over a fear of hijack by ‘politicians’. The protest happened and there were videos on social media circulating showing policemen assaulting protesters and journalists at Ojota. The police came out afterward to claim that this was their way of preventing the protests from being hijacked by ‘hoodlums’.

In October this year when Nigerians started planning for the first anniversary of #EndSARS protests and the remembrance of the victims of police brutality before and during that protest (especially those massacred at Lekki toll gate), the national economic council led by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo warned against the protests for fears that it could be hijacked by ‘armed hoodlums and other opportunistic criminals’. Later when the protests were held, it was the police who were seen attacking protesters and journalists across protest venues.

Earlier this month when the #NoMoreBloodshed #NorthIsBleeding protests were convened in the northern states of the country against insecurity, the department of state services (DSS) invited/arrested one of the protest leaders, Zainab Ahmed, and after questioning she publicly backed out of the protest saying her decision was “due to the information I heard about the plans to hijack and cause chaos for some political interest”. Don’t forget that these protests were organised because people no longer felt safe in their homes, but now they were asked to return home by the DSS through Zainab Ahmed because protest grounds were not safe as if one kind of insecurity is better than the other.

According to my dictionary, to hijack something means to ‘take over (something) and use it for a different purpose’. Basic Social Studies taught me that a protest is civil disobedience – a civil action done to disobey the government until it obeys the wills of the masses. If the goal of protests is to disobey the government, then that protest can only be deemed hijacked by those forces enforcing obedience to the government. In simpler words, if the purpose of a protest is to take to the streets and show justified grievances against the government, then it is those who stop the masses from taking to the streets that are actually hijacking the protests.

With this logic, it was Segalink, Malami, and the Buhari-APC regime (not Nnamdi Kanu) that hijacked the #EndSARS protests by asking protesters to stop protesting. With this logic, it was the police and the NANS leadership that hijacked the #June12 protests, and it was Osinbajo and the national economic council that hijacked the #EndSARS remembrance protests. With this logic, it was the DSS that hijacked the #NorthIsBleeding protests. Strikingly, the facts on the ground corroborate this logic. They were the ones who tried to ‘take over’ the organised anger of the masses and use it for a ‘different purpose’ other than the intention of the masses to protest.

In their own words, they admitted that it was hoodlums, hustlers playing games, and politicians that are trying to hijack those protests and change narratives. In all of these, the only means of hijack that they pointed out were violence, political games, and changing of narratives. Yet it was DSS that changed Zainab Ahmed’s narrative. It was the police and the military that formally brought violence into the #EndSARS protests. It was Malami that brought his political games against Nnamdi Kanu into the #EndSARS protests. It was Segalink that brought his political games against the Feminist Coalition into the #EndSARS protests.

The idea that it is the duty of the government to protect protests from violence, political games, or changed narratives is itself a political product of the ideology of authoritarianism. If protests are meant to disobey the government until they correct something that is wrong with them, how then do they still remain authorities on how peaceful those protests are and what narrative to push in those protests? For example, during the #EndSARS protests, the same government that was being protested against for using police brutality on the masses decided to use military brutality to “correct” the direction of the protests, further confirming how brutal the military and the police are on innocent citizens. During the #NorthIsBleeding protests, the same government that was being protested against for allowing the insecurity in the north arrested and tortured those protesters, further confirming the allegations that the government seems to be okay with the state of insecurity in the north and in the country generally. Even the Yorubas will say that: “A man who is infamous for having a rotten body tissue has a duty to cover his tissues from the public glare”.

Meanwhile, the politicians who are presently in power once participated in protests before they came into power, and no one alleged that they were hijacking such protests. Some of the politicians in the Buhari-APC regime participated in the #OccupyNigeria 2012 protests and no one accused them of hijacking those protests. They were welcomed and given placards and megaphones. There was news of plans of northern governors to get involved in a protest against insecurity in the north and no one is claiming that they are politicians trying to hijack the #NorthIsBleeding protests because it is their right to protest. If we have a basic agreement in our opposition to the insecurity in the north with any politician, we can strike together and march differently. They have only one voice in that protest, and cannot assume authority over such protests. The only reason why northern governors should be driven out of such protests is not that they are politicians but because they are actually politicians in power and executives in government whose duty it is to address insecurity, and against who we’re protesting. It is for that reason that they must be regarded as “hijackers” from the government, not because they are politicians.

A protest is the most democratic expression of the power of the people. To preserve the right narratives in protests, democratic congresses of protesters can solve that. ASUU congresses, that led to the 2013 ASUU protests over needs assessment funds of universities, were important means to preserve the narratives of that protest. The protest enjoyed solidarity from students and market women alike, and no one lamented that it was being hijacked. It was the police that teargassed UNIABUJA lecturers on October 30, 2013, while they had a peaceful rally. During #EndSARS protests when pro-government thugs attacked protesters in Abuja and Lagos, it was the mass of protesters that protected themselves by repelling the thugs, and the thugs were even given food and medical treatment by protesters after they had been conquered. The police were nowhere to be found during the attack. During the Kaduna NLC protests earlier in the year, the police stood down while pro-government thugs attacked protesters and it was the mass of protesters that defended themselves against the thugs.

Therefore, a protest of the masses cannot be hijacked, except by the government. The only way to be able to hijack a protest is to be directly or indirectly a part of the government being protested against. This is how to hijack a protest! Therefore it is only a cunning and manipulative excuse for a government to hijack a protest (by stopping such protest) under the guise that they fear that the protest will be hijacked. This is a dangerous way to gaslight the masses.

From all of these analyses, it is obvious that it is the Nigerian government that hijacks protests because it is what we see in all of the instances of protests, and they are the only ones who actually have the ability, resources, and the motive to hijack protests by stopping protests.

Yes, the only way to hijack a protest is by stopping the protest, and the people that should be jailed for hijacking our protests are the government, their security agents, and their thugs.

Omole writes from Abuja and can be contacted on 09060277591