Soyinka: Use of bullets, tear gas on protesters an abuse of power

Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate, says the use of bullets and tear gas on Nigerians protesting against economic hardship is an abuse of state power.

Soyinka said the manner in which security operatives treated the protesters condemns the nation to a “seemingly unbreakable cycle of resentment and reprisals”.

In an opinion piece titled: ‘The Hunger March As Universal Mandate’, the Nobel laureate said President Bola Tinubu’s speech on Sunday failed to address the “continuing deterioration of the state’s seizure of protest management”.

Soyinka said hunger protests are not peculiar to Nigeria, adding that the nation’s security agencies should emulate alternative models and civilised advances in security intervention.

“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 said.

‘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.

“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.”

On Thursday, Nigerians took to the streets in many parts of the country to protest against the economic situation of the country, especially the rising cost of living.

The protest has been marred by violence, looting, and destruction of public facilities in some parts of the country.

In some states, security operatives tear gassed and shot live bullets at protesters and journalists. Some protesters were killed during the exercise.

“The time is long overdue, surely, to abandon, permanently, the anachronistic resort to lethal means by the security agencies of governance,” Soyinka said.

“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.”

In a nationwide broadcast on Sunday, Tinubu urged the protesters to shelve the 10-day demonstration, adding that he has heard the youths “loud and clear”.