By Tony Ademiluyi

Irked by the rising cost of living and alleged bad governance in Nigeria, some civil society organizations most notably The Revolution Now Group led by the Publisher of Sahara Reporters, Comrade Omoyele Sowore called for a peaceful protest in Nigeria.

The protest which held in the major cities across Nigeria was captioned #endbadgovernanceinNigeria. It was held between August 1 and 10, 2024.

Among the major demands of the protesters were

• The call on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to scrap the military-influenced 1999 Constitution and replace it with a people-oriented one.
• The call for a Sovereign National Conference followed immediately by a national referendum, the scrapping of the senate and the making of national legislation a part-time endeavour.
• The payment of 250,000 naira as a national minimum wage, educational grants rather than loans, and free and compulsory education for all students across Nigeria.
• The unconditional release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu (the detained leader of the proscribed secessionist movement, IPOB); the demilitarization of the Southeast; and the release of all the end SARS detainees.
• Renationalization of publicly owned enterprises sold to corrupt government officials and their cronies.
• The reinstating of a corruption-free subsidy regime to reduce hunger, poverty and multidimensional poverty.

28^th July was a watershed in the build up to the protests as some protesters blocked the Abuja-Kaduna Highway and marched in Niger State.

Timeline of the Protest

• 1 August: The protests officially began with marches in Lagos, Abuja, Kaduna, Kano, Gombe, Jigawa, and Borno. The police fired live bullets and teargas in Abuja to disperse the protesters. A photojournalist with the Daily Independent Newspapers, Jide Oyekunle was arrested.
• 2 August: There were protests in many cities including Lagos, Port Harcourt, and Benin. Police fired teargas at protesters in Abuja and Akwa Ibom. Curfews were imposed in more states including Borno and Kaduna.
• 3 August: In the capital city Abuja, the police used teargas on protesters. In Kano, one protester was shot in the neck and rushed to the hospital. Protesters in Kano waved Russian flags and publicly called for Vladimir Putin’s intervention. The Russian embassy denied the country’s involvement in the protest.
• 4 August: President Bola Tinubu finally addressed the nation. He acknowledged the public’s pain and frustration. He urged the protesters to suspend the protests and called for dialogue to resolve the challenges. He harped on the need to prevent violence and destruction as well as highlighted his administration’s efforts to improve public welfare and stabilize the economy. The Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) urged the opposition leaders to spearhead the protests against Tinubu’s government.
• 5 August: Some children, youths, waved Russian flags and marched from the residence of the Late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua in Katsina State. The police used teargas to disperse the crowd. Seven Polish Students and Faculty Members of the University of Warsaw were arrested in Kano State on the suspicion of waving Russian flags during the protests.
• 6 August: Forty protesters in Northern Nigeria including the tailor that designed the Russian flag were arrested. Protests in Port Harcourt turned violent as the youths demanded the resignation of President Tinubu. The protesters damaged property including the APC Secretariat and invaded the home of the FCT Minister in Port Harcourt, Nyesom Wike.
• 7 August: The protesters declared a three day of mourning from the 7^th to the 9^th to honour the memory of their slain comrades.
• 8 August: Simon Ekpa, the Finnish-based acting leader of IPOB criticized the Works Minister, David Umahi for insinuating that the Southeast Governors were responsible for the non-protest by south easterners. Ekpa claimed that the reason why the Igbos chose not to join the protest was due to their own decision and the resistance against certain government actions.
• 9 August: The Take It Back Movement – one of the organizers of the protest announced a one-million-man march on the 10^th across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
• 10 August: There was an anti-climax as the one-million-man march was a colossal flop.

The protest, though with good intentions, was a gargantuan exercise in futility as none of the demands were met. The fact that Sowore, a key leader in the protest was in faraway New Jersey in the US made some critics of the protest dismiss him as a Safety-First Radical who was too cowardly to lead from the front.

Also, the use of live bullets by the security agencies is highly condemnable as the standard global practice is the use of rubber bullets to prevent casualties.

The implication of the raised Russian flag was to sow seeds of discord between Russia and Nigeria as well as portray Russia as one of the sponsors of the protest. Russia has a growing influence in West Africa especially in the Francophone speaking countries where she has been perceived to back the military coups in Burkina Faso and Niger due to the presence of its Wagner Group. The raising of the flag in Nigeria’s protest could be perceived as Russia’s attempt to extend her influence on Nigeria’s internal affairs.

The protest didn’t really hold in the southeast because they could easily have been the scapegoats in the hands of the security agencies. The protests could have driven home their self-determination demand under the cover of the protest, and it could have led to chaos there. Veteran Artiste, Eedris Abdulkarim put it succinctly when he said that if the Russian flag had been found in the southeast, the infamous python dance where security agencies brutalized some Igbos in the southeast would have been child’s play there.

Another noticeable feature of the protest was the absence of celebrities participating in it unlike the #endSars protest.

Going forward, there should be wider consultations by Nigerians both at home and abroad to avoid the futile ‘ten days of rage.’