AS TUFACE BACKS DOWN ON HIS PLANNED PROTEST

People who know me enough, know to bet against teams I openly support, hence when it comes to betting I hardly am your best bet in terms of predictions but I guessed something right this time around, unfortunately I didn't stake a claim publicly before it became reality, and so you could feel free to say "Yeah Right" in response to my veiled prediction. Maybe next time, I'd be more forthcoming, but the truth is that since talk about this proposed rally or peaceful protest or demonstration, which later had popular Nigerian artiste, Innocent Idibia aka Tuface aka Tubaba as its face became talk of town, with supporters and antagonists equally matched with daggers drawn, I'd personally spoken or written little about it on social media and outside of it, because somehow, having put several two and twos together, I felt it wouldn't hold. I didn't know however, that Tuface himself (who continues to endure personal attacks verbally thrown at him on all sides since pegging his name to the protests) will via YouTube cancel it, for now, for fear that it might be hijacked by vested interests, not aligned with the spirit of the protests, especially seeing that there are now genuine fears for the lives of protesters by no less, those whose constitutional responsibility it is to protect them (with precedence to boot).

TUFACE CANCELS PLANNED PROTEST.

The truth is that Nigerians are suffering, including those who are still playing ostriches, just because their man President Muhammadu Buhari is in power and they can't support any anything that may end up with power shifting from the north to the south (even with the likelihood slim to non-existent), the reason why he still has massive support in the North; or because they are too proud, like most southwesterners to admit that they fell for a well orchestrated scam in the last presidential election, even with their so called exposure and enlightenment; or because like southeastern politicians just because of a promise of power shift to the Igbo after eight years of Buhari, have now suddenly seen the "light", and in throwing their weight behind the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC by decamping in their droves from the People's Democratic Party, PDP with no thoughts for their brother, Deputy Senate President Ekwerenmadu whose position they've largely jeopardized unless he aligns with them and switch as well to the ruling party.

By dawn, when Nigerians wake to the news, those "Standing With Buhari" will see this as a victory, while those in opposition will lick their wounds, but the discerning will see this as another missed opportunity to demand that those in power be accountable to the people on whose behalf they exercise such powers. I have watched how some commentators in the past few days have missed the point in stating their positions, forgetting that protests are a cardinal part of democracy, more important even than the elections which is like the fuel for the engine that drives democracy, of which the work itself is in the driving, navigating through the bumpy parts and maintaining the vehicle. But they say, if we don't like a government we should simply wait four years to change it (rather than demand a change midstream even of the people in power who promised change, but appear only to have strengthened the old ways of doing things), as if we are all guaranteed to be alive in four years.

NIGERIA'S SHIP OF STATE.

I saw Nigerians, some of whom are leaders of thought, support the gagging of fellow Nigerians because they disagree with their stance on issues. Forgetting that the alternative to protests is something far worse, and that presently it's a slippery slope filled with smoldering embers that we are on, the flames of which this protest originally planned for Monday the 6th of February would've helped to douse. You could feel the anger in Nigerians when they speak on the streets, at newspaper stands,

on call-in programmes in the electronic media, in vox-pop sections of newspapers, to the social media, and some have gone ahead to express their displeasure in the rising rate of crime and criminality because of the hardship that the name Buhari now seems to embody and connote. Yet, when a group thought it wise that people should channel their anger in the orderly manner that a protest avails, as the constitution allows, some of their fellow country men, including the police charged with the responsibility amongst others, to maintain law and order, besides providing adequate security for protesters not only decided to frustrate the move, but at every point warned against holding the "peaceful" protest, even when the "Acting President" declared that Nigerians have every right to protest. Though in retrospect it's difficult to not read between the lines to find that he may not have matched action to his words, going by the manner the Inspector General of Police appeared to still issue a statement after that banning any protest, (in his estimation) for and against the government in power.

I understand that the ruling party will be weary of protests against its policies (that's even if they have any), as they should ordinarily, seeing that their ascendancy to power was on the back of protests such as this a few years ago, and because of extenuating circumstances, feel that this one may be politically motivated, just like they did while in opposition, unfortunately they will leave so very undone the very democracy for which they are beneficiaries today, as more Nigerians continue to bottle up their pent up anger at an aloof president, a veepee with hands tied, a selfish parliament, and weakened judiciary, with an Acting Chief Justice whose confirmation hangs in the balance and may have to quit in days, after holding the reins for just three months, because (according to widespread belief) he doesn't fit the geopolitical requirement for such a high position that he should normally live and have progressed into.

Finally, the greatest shame of all. The police that has yet to reform itself to become the police of the people, like they've become everywhere else in developed democracies, and not just phalanges of the president and people in power. I don't even know the generation of officers who will be committed to help bring Nigeria to the comity of "civilized" nations via exemplary policing amongst the present set of all cadres, starting with management of protests. Even with all of President Donald Trump's hatred for opposition, he didn't order a crackdown on protesters (who exponentially trumped the number of those at his "empty" inauguration) against his "knee-jerk reaction" executive orders. One of the reasons many people gave this

Buhari regime a chance was because of his Vice President 'Yemi Osinbajo, a law professor and former Attorney-General of Lagos State, and for him not to have gone beyond just mouthing support for this protest, definitely not against his party but for the right of Nigerians to do so, and insist on them being allowed as guaranteed by the constitution, injures the soul. In another opportunity where he's left to clear the mess after his boss, who once again is out of the country on "vacation", he forgets easily, the eternal words of the late President John F. Kennedy, that "those who make peaceful revolution (change) impossible, make violent revolution (change) inevitable". Mtcheeeeeew!


'kovich



VIDEO CREDIT:
- https://www.youtube.com


PICTURE CREDIT:
- NIGERIA FIRST STICKERS by RESPONSIBLE CITIZENS OF NIGERIA

OF OKADA RIDERS & POLICEMEN IN BARIGA

It was an Okada rider friend of mine that told me about it last week, even before I saw the visuals on Sahara TV. An Okada (moped taxi) rider was riding his customer and child to their destination in Bariga, in Lagos. While she was alighting, the Okada rider sighted a policeman in mufti (as is their nature, especially when they intend to raid unsuspecting members of the public, justly or unjustly), coming towards him with the aim of "arresting" and milking him of his hard earned money, decided to bolt away, thinking the child behind him had alighted with the mother, only for the woman to begin to shout to him to stop so her child could come down from the bike. Unfortunately, this incident happened around Bariga market, with the crowd that could easily become a lynch mob at the slightest provocation. These, thinking that this was yet another case of kidnapping (especially for ritual purposes) successfully stopped the Okada rider and began to descend on him without hearing his side of the story, nor the womans' (whose child had by now been safely returned to her), whose appeal to them to desist from hitting the man was falling on deaf ears.

THE BEATING OF THE OKADAMAN IN BARIGA CAUGHT ON VIDEO. (SOURCE: SAHARA TV)

Interestingly, the policeman and his colleagues (who had by now joined in the melee) who were responsible for the fiasco in the first place, rather than help situate the matter in its right perspective, even if at the end of the day, they'd arrest the Okadaman and deal with him as they wished, allowed the man to be beaten to near comatose level before the woman with the help of others was able to gain access to the pummeling party, to relate the true side of the story, and they helped take the man to the clinic for treatment. That day Okada riders rode free of police intimidation and extortion in Bariga, because the Divisional Police Officer, without accepting responsibility for the actions of his men or apologizing for it, appeared to have prevailed on his men to sheathe their swords at least for that day, because of the seething anger amongst the populace when the truth of what actually happened was made manifest. In fact the Okadaman and the woman she carried were familiar with each other, and this wasn't the first time he'd be carrying her and her child.


Only a few of the inhabitants of Bariga felt that the coming of the new DPO at the Ilaje Police Station in Bariga, will change the extortionist ways and tendencies of the police in that part of Lagos. At the end of their evil stick are Okada and Tricycle (Keke) riders, sometimes the "Danfo" drivers though they have a strong union with connections with politicians and powerful people in the society that unless for serious criminal cases have become untouchable by the Nigerian police, as long as their palms are frequently greased with "shandy", "wazo" or any other pseudonym for any of Nigeria's currencies that the policemen routine collect at various points in Lagos where legally and illegally position themselves daily come rain or shine. Part of the proceeds from their "day's labour" goes into "deliveries" they make to the bosses in the offices, who assign them to "juicy" spots, like the areas around Bariga market in Lagos (for instance), with the heavy flow of traffic there. Some of it goes into the various "esusu" (like cooperatives) they join, to which they deliver huge sums of money daily, weekly or monthly, amounts that sometimes either equal, or more in multiples of their monthly emoluments, of which when collected eventually a few of them have gone on to build estates, even establish businesses.


It's a known fact that a large percentage of the Okada plying the Bariga route are owned by the policemen posted there, and the riders of Okada not owned by any policeman have to "settle" some policemen frequently, for "protection" in the days they have a falling-out with the colleagues of their "protector"; though a few times these have joined their peers in complicating matters, when their help is sought leaving the Okada riders in deeper shit and despair than they were before calling up their chargers for "protective aid". With these policemen in Bariga there's no gain, just losses, severally they'd carry out raids on the neighbourhoods arresting boys for just about any flimsy reason under the sun. Of course, only the Inspector-General of Police know that "BAIL IS FREE", Nigerians know that the contrary is true, and the amount they collect will make you wonder if police stations haven't become revenue generation centers, not for government, but those men in uniform. That police station in Ilaje, at some point had an ATM within its environ before the immediate past Central Bank governor outlawed the siting of ATMs at locations other than around banks. While that ATM was there though, it was difficult for anyone who had "business" to do at that police station, to claim they had no money for bail.


When it comes to the police, President Buhari's "CHANGE" mantra holds no water. Even the state police commissioners who have been regaling the public with rallies of "Change Begins With Me" by policemen and women under them, know that it's just mere lip service and another money making adventure. Nothing in the extortionist behavior of the police have changed, rather the fees payable have astronomically increased owing to the "recession" in the air, and Nigerians have been left none the better for it. When last year, a policeman lost three of his children to a landslide in Lagos, not a few Nigerians and Lagosians were unsympathetic with the man, when it returns to their consciousness that the man is a member of the Nigerian Police Force, many of those unsympathetic Nigerians had a good reason to feel the way they did.


'kovich



VIDEO CREDIT:
- https://youtu.be/3epMcLz_2fY