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Care for a dance? #ENDSARS, #SecureNorth, absurdities and patriotism

‘…partisan affiliation and political expedience would threaten to blot out everything — your previous positions; your stated principles; even what your own senses; your eyes and ears, told you to be true’– Former U.S. President, Barack Obama

Absurdity, if it were sought after, rests comfortably in some quarters of Nigerian-Twitter, often situated on the cushions of political discourse. You stand guilty of being unpatriotic today because you dared to even think, or to have an opinion that might embarrass the president and the government.

Your lack of patriotism veered into the realms of danger and an affront on national security when you dared to take your angst against police brutality and then decided you could organise that into a peaceful protest. The bunch of you are unpatriotic. How dare you make Nigeria look bad in the eyes of the world? Yes, thousands of Nigerians have been extra-judicially killed by the police, thousands of homes left to the pounding darkness of sorrow, the emptiness of loss and the repetitive whining sound of helplessness. Thousands more have been maimed, injured and extorted by the police but the patriotic thing would have been to stay quiet and just hope for a miracle, that those who refused to do anything about this for years, those who never even acknowledged all of these human rights abuses, would wake up someday to address it. You refused to wait, you instead went out and protested. You are not patriotic. You are enemies of Nigeria!

This may sound absurd to you, but it fits right into the thinking of a number of partisans on Nigeria’s social media space. Going by the continued arrest of peaceful protesters in Nigeria, it certainly aligns with the thinking of some people with power and authority in the Nigerian government.

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The call to #ENDSARS is yet to end police brutality in Nigeria

In a different normal, patriotism is loyalty to one’s country and its people. It means that when push comes to shove, love for one’s country and compatriots would never wane. As part of the postmodern disease of truth as it fits your agenda, patriotism has suffered a lot of smashes and bends. In the wake of #ENDSARS protests in Nigeria for instance, patriotism has been inferred to mean an unequivocal support for the government and the president, at all times, against all facts and all forces of truth. The lone exception is when such facts and truths align with the interest of the president and the government. In essence, any fact or truth that are deemed as embarrassing to the government and the president are not to be posted, shared or amplified by patriotic citizens. They have done a great job to convince themselves that Nigeria is the same as the government and the president is the same as the Nigerian people. The shoddy bit of that conviction is that when that president’s interest does not find alignment with the interest of the Nigerian people, then by all means, you would be unpatriotic not to stand with the president.

Whatever Baba says, wrong or right, Sai Baba!

So, when innocent citizens get killed by the police, they look at people like Howard Zinn in the eyes and let him know, indeed the flag is always large enough to cover the killing of innocent people. When scores of compatriots get killed by terrorists, silence would be preferred to a call for the government to protect lives and property. This has gone on so long, 43 people are beheaded by terrorists, the president sends an aide to tweet his grief, describes the death with some adjective, then waits another day to post on his own twitter page. Such posts used to be accompanied with ‘shock’ but it appears even Aso Rock has finally run out of shock. The masses tweet, cry on Facebook, then fight one another for either being too critical of the government or for defending it. Political figures make statements, often caressing the severity of the danse macabre that has become the ordeal of daily living in Nigeria, as the Game of Thrones for the next elections take precedence over anything else. This includes the safety and protection of the very people whose votes proved more than needed to take them to the thrones they currently occupy. They must wonder what was wrong with Mark Twain and declare instead, loyalty to the president always. Loyalty to the people, when they align with the president. A call to #SecureNorth for instance cannot to be vague as to who the primary recipient of that message should be; it is a message first to the President of Nigeria because the buck stops at his table — so it was before President Buhari, so it is now and so it will be after him. And if change must come in this fight against Boko Haram, the advocacy for #SecureNorth must be clear and it must go beyond social media posts. Are we speaking loud enough? Is the speaker directed at the right quarters? If the north is not safe, Nigeria is not; beyond the sweetness of commitments to Nigeria’s unity, we are dependent on one another, whether we like it or not. We either thrive together or…God forbid!

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The burial of scores of farmers killed by terrorists in Zabarmari, Borno State

The Nigerian Army will never not be the nation’s pride. It is one of the reasons the country continues to hold sway against forces that oppose territorial integrity, especially terrorists and bandits. But with its role in the Lekki Shooting of 20/10/2020, the Nigerian Army landed itself on its bum, and I know that Yakata fall must really hurt those within the Army and other stakeholders who care for its professionalism. First came a denial of presence; that the Army was not there. Then the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo Olu, admitted on CNN that the Army had indeed been there — he would know because the Army later changed its story that it was indeed there, but on the request of the Governor. That was bad enough but more was coming; the Army claimed that it went to the protest ground with blanks, it then admitted it also went with live bullets. Now, before you have a debate of whether they shot anyone, killed anyone or how many people they killed, one’s suspicion antenna would ordinarily be tilted in the direction of ‘what’s going on here?’ Why was the Army contradicting itself at will? Is it not odd that those who would hound CNN for daring to clarify its tweets on the death toll arising from the protest, somehow have not made any reference to the zig-zag positions of the Army? Hoopla about a clarification, grave silence about outright lies. Typical.

As if absurdity was not comfortable enough to seem normal, that people had been killed was not bad to them, their anger was that CNN dared to report it. So they counted it all joy when CNN dared to correct itself — making it clear that the quoted number of deaths was representative of the entire country rather than just a specific protest ground. Indeed, they insist on seeing bodies before they believe anyone was killed, because of course, it is impossible that those who did the killing could not have gone with the bodies. It also does not matter that families of the victims have been identified nor that the governor admitted to at least two killings, on CNN nonetheless.

People whose beliefs are hardly founded on evidence scream, ‘where is the evidence?’ as though one is responsible for their refusal to see it. If I wrote here that those that were confirmed dead by the governor must have been killed by the awkward movement of the wind that day, and not bullets, these tenants would embrace that absurditylike a child does a soft teddy. Theywould believe me, before their bravery to think gets corrected by the landlords of their Whatsapp groups; that that was a note of sarcasm. I would know about these Whatsapp groups, I have had some in there share images of conversations surrounding my tweets on #ENDSARS with me, including acquaintances that are otherwise rational, except when their partisanship requires the suspension of logic.

Ordinarily, a piece like this would elicit three possible leanings from you; generally agree, disagree or not even sure where to place it. All of those would be normal. The new absurdity though is to not know what to think or say until it is shared in some Whatsapp group, broken down according to how it would affect certain people, then yourthinking would be done for you, your tweets decided for you, before you march along with the army to go tweet in line with the position of your Whatsapp members. The music legend, Fela Kuti, would famously call such people Zombies. My view is simply that it is the world in which we have found ourselves; a world where thinking is dangerous, where disagreeing with people means you are their enemy and where to ask better of your government is to embarrass it, because how dare you ask of someone what they simply have no capacity to deliver? Is that not a way of trying to make them look bad, and trying to put their incompetence on the global stage to be broadcast by the likes of CNN?

You can go from, ‘Sai Baba!’ may be having supported his run for president in 2015 and even 2019, to ‘please don’t say Baba!’ if you disagree with his position on an issue. Try it, you won’t die. On my part, I made it clear to the president at a meeting just after he was elected in 2015; he is a consequence of someone’s else’s failures and we will always retain the right to criticise him when wrong. Your ability to respect anyone should be founded your right to agree or disagree with them. Outside of that, it would be bordering on worshipping them if you are left with no choice but to always agree with them. A man who gleefully retweeted a threat to an #ENDSARS protester (that, “if they want you, you go just loss & NOTHING WILL HAPPEN”), believes that one’s stand with the Nigerian people for an end to police brutality is a form of quest for social validation and that it was a way to jump ship. From where to where, I would not know. This speaks to their otherworldly thinking — if it is to be called thinking — that goes on in these groups. It must always be about sides and fault lines, APC or PDP, Buhari/Atiku/Jonathan etc and never about the collective interest of the Nigerian people. Is Patriotism then, love for one’s political Baba first, then love for country if it earns it? To most of us though, it should always be country first.

Let’s keep dancing, state failure does not discriminate against those who think their leaders can do no wrong and those who are currently bearing its brunt. Ultimately, everyone gets to hear the music. I am certain, those who insist that today’s government and the president is always right will one-day march with the Nigerian people, to ask better of another president. When they do, we will again march with them, consistent through the times, always standing with God, country and the people! In the end, we will all come to see that if most Nigerians do not feel safe in their country, it does not matter who you voted or who voted for you, poor or rich, weak or powerful, Christian or Muslim, North or South; until Nigeria works for all of us, none of us will feel safe in it.

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About JJ Omojuwa

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