Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka criticized President Bola Tinubu’s national broadcast on Sunday, highlighting its failure to address critical issues raised by ongoing protests.
He said the speech did not address the violent crackdown by security forces on #EndBadGovernance protesters.
He gave the position in a statement issued on Sunday just as police took over the Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Park at Ojota, the Lagos venue of the mass protest by the aggrieved youth.
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The action of the police came after a clash by the protesters and hoodlums who came to chase away a group of protesting youths that gathered at the place.
Soyinka expressed concern over the President’s omission of the critical issue of violent attack of peaceful protesters by the police.
He said, “I set my alarm clock for this morning to ensure that I did not miss President Bola Tinubu’s impatiently awaited address to the nation on the current unrest across the nation.
“His outline of government’s remedial action since inception, aimed at warding off just such an outbreak, will undoubtedly receive expert and sustained attention both for effectiveness and in content analysis. 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.
“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.
“They serve as summons to governance that a breaking point has been reached and thus, a testing ground for governance awareness of public desperation.
“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.
“The nation’s security agencies cannot pretend unawareness of alternative models for emulation, civilized advances in security intervention.
“Need we recall the nationwide 2022/23 editions of what is generally known as the YELLOW VEST movement in France?
“Perhaps it is time to make such scenarios compulsory viewing in policing curriculum.
“In all of the coverage that I watched, I did not catch one single instance of a gun leveled at protesters, much less fired at them even during direct physical confrontations.
“The serving of bullets where bread is pleaded is ominous retrogression, and we know what that eventually proves – a prelude to far more desperate upheavals, not excluding revolutions.
“The time is long overdue, surely, to abandon, permanently, the anachronistic resort to lethal means by the security agencies of governance. “No nation is so under-developed, materially impoverished, or simply internally insecure as to lack the will to set an example.
Police take over after Lagos protesters, hoodlums clash
Meanwhile, hoodlums on Sunday disrupted the fourth day of a peaceful protest at Gani Fawehinmi Park in Ojota, Lagos State.
According to an account by Vanguard, the demonstration, which began without incident, saw a significant escalation around 10:30 a.m.
The situation became tense when a lawyer identified only as JP urged protesters to leave the site, citing President Bola Tinubu’s recent national address.
However, a faction led by 70-year-old Adegboyega Adeniji of Peace Action Transformation insisted on continuing the protest.
The police intervened, attempting to persuade the remaining protesters to disperse.
Moments later, a group of individuals, whom the protesters alleged were hired to disrupt the event, emerged from across the street and began chasing them away.
By 11:30am, the situation had deteriorated as the group of hoodlums returned and forced all protesters out of the area.
The police later stormed the place and took over the park.
