“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich” – J.F. Kennedy

The future has invaded us. A wise ‘gerontocrat’ should now be armed with an exit plan. The time to fade away into anonymity is now. Our children are here. The age-long forcible appropriation of power and abbreviation of duty by an old brigade that has cast a shadow of arrested development on us is over.

The game is up! Suddenly, ‘lepers’ of ‘Samaria,’ waiting at the gate of abundance but hungry, living in the land of plenty but poor have discovered the game-changer. It was Esther Principle, ‘if I perish I perish’. It was operation no option! Confront your fear, defeat your oppressors! It is better to die like a martyr than to live like a coward! My letter to Nigerian Youths immediately after the ENDSARS Peaceful protesters was lethally attacked by soldiers at Lekki was unmistakable. I enjoined them to; ‘avoid guilt feeling, avoid anxiety, avoid hope losing; like David, encourage yourself. Your goal was not chaos, your tactic was not entropic. The race for a better life is legitimate.

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The right to a better and safer country is constitutional. Keep hope alive. One day, you shall overcome. Hold the forth! Nigeria shall be great again. You are architects of that future!’

This letter was necessary because, over the years, Nigerian youths have been treated like lepers. They suffer exclusions; in politics, in governance, in social and economic activities, including being suffocated in an atmosphere of unequal opportunities presented to them by seemingly irredeemable corrupt elites and the poorly trained and resourced agents of the state. Burdened by wide range unemployment, comatose educational system and practically lack of support from governments, they have metaphorically become lepers of Samaria, held up by hunger outside the gate of prosperity by fear of death inside the garden of prosperity. They are hunted by those who should protect them, killed by those who should defend them. The chain of timidity is broken, their souls have escaped from the snare of the cruel cage of the wicked.

Nigeria is at a critical junction. The reason is that rulers take things for granted. It is in all statistical data that the nation is the world’s poverty capital. Youth unemployment in a nation riddled with extreme violence and running hyperinflation never bother the ruling elites of a corruption driven economy.

They do not tame the gluttony of non-productive rulers with the ostentatious taste – rulers with no conscience for sacrifice, even for the frightening large army of unemployed youth. It has been a national journey without roadrunners. Elected autocrats recklessly and lawlessly determine what they take out of common patrimony. Parliament of pests feasts on the act of ‘legalized’ fiscal banditry, ingeniously tagged budget padding driven constituency allowances. The executive does not fair better while Judiciary has even extended its own territory of tyranny to truncating the power of voters to elect their own rulers. We do all these with no eyes on balls of consequence.

The night is here, and we are at a critical junction Accident abounds. You can blame the poor and the oppressed for pushing further the boundaries of systemic lawlessness that were latently constructed by rulers of darkness. It shocks me that even at the critical junction; we expect no consequence for monumental acts of brigandage that have attended governance over the years. E shock you? It’s now clearer than we had ever seen that state failure does not cherry-pick its victims. There is no excuse for silence, especially where hard data of potential danger stare us in the face. It’s the law of Stimulus and Response; without addressing structural and systemic violence, you can’t reduce the risk of physical violence.

Where else in the world do you find a system that supports a supposed lawmaker to hoard 350 motorcycles,500 variants of the machine in the name of ingeniously criminally crafted constituency’s interventions? This conspicuous evidence of larceny and malfeasance is what your campaign wanted to end! Ignore the veterans who wanted to choose your fight for you. Have mercy on ‘veteran’ activists and revolution experts who vilified your tactics. It is difficult to see direct, structural and cultural violence as all elements of the triangle of violence when you simultaneously hold Karl Marx’s Das Kapital and spoon on oppressor’s table. There, everything becomes a linear algebra. To them, there is no relationship between structural, cultural and direct violence in a ghastly failing state.

That is the Tragedy of deliberate social blindness. It so difficult for them to understand that each generation has its mission. Though ethnic rodents invaded the rubbles, raising dust for the criminalization of your noble struggle, yet, you fought a good fight. That’s the complexity of our diversity crisis. Group interest and group behaviour are sociological facts with historical anthropological evidence that have a basis in history, even in the criminological evaluation as well as conflict analysis.

We are merely political when we discountenance them in order to project pacifism as dominant conflict interrogation and resolution theory and mechanism. Rigid Individualization of crime and conflict actors suffers extreme restrictions while interrogating conspiracy, a time tested critical element of conflict – crime facilitation and commission that validates capacity of the group to commit violent conflict crime. Extrication of group behaviour from analysis of conflict actors (often for political expediency in Nigeria) has made us vulnerable to context- independence as well as making conflict transformation difficult and a herculean task.

Nevertheless, it is apt to state here that a proactive charismatic leader would have taken advantage of this national crisis to ignite citizen’s emotional brand attachment to Nigeria. Then, imagine a monumental liability brewed by silence for want of one!

Citizen’s protection starts with respect for human rights. In furtherance of the justiciability of fundamental human rights, National Assembly should come out with Acts of Parliament that oust illegal detentions by Police,  Military, DSS et al, by making individual officers personally criminally and civil wise liable while making indicted Agencies vicariously liable with heavy financial stakes for remediation of victims. Detentions without Court order after 48hr must be abolished and nothing should be left to the discretion of law enforcement agents in respect of the power to detain after the initial 48 hours.

Irrational resistance to change by the power elite in a nation bruised and bleeding from severe structural defects is worrisome. This blind resistance to restructuring for a more cohesive, just and equitable Nigeria to emerge have dire consequence for unity, progress and development of a nation that has been weakening by fratricidal animosity, ethnic and religious bickering as well as social injustices. Young Nigerians are beginning to understand the trajectory of the tragedy.

It’s unfair to history to expect that elected autocrats will justly govern. They operate with the lingering memory of fascism; tool kit that guides their feet along tyranny way. The duty of Patriots is to make their road rough!

Gbenro Olajuyigbe is the Executive Director, Emergency & Risk Alert Initiative, Abuja Nigeria

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