By Michael Chibuzo
Politics is a very deep and tricky scientific undertaking. The fact that Albert Einstein, one of the most intelligent scientists of the modern era described politics as being more difficult than physics, tells a story itself. Unfortunately, in many countries, the political class who are few in number are those who have mastered the art of weaponising the science of politics to manipulate the usually relatively innocent majority.
In every day life, con men look for human frailty to exploit. This can be greed, ignorance, dogmatic beliefs or some other base instincts. In politics, in addition to the above, some clever politicians usually exploit a different vice – anger. The emotional are always the most susceptible to manipulation, according to a popular American author, Meyer Pamela.
So, it happened that in Nigeria my beloveth country there is a very fertile ecosystem for manipulation of a vast majority of people straddling between the base levels of the social pyramid. Ignorance is endemic, dogmatic beliefs are polarising, and anger is illuminating red hot.
The 2023 general elections came and went with many emerging winners and many more being on the losing end. At the national level, the APC retained power with Bola Ahmed Tinubu emerging as Nigeria’s President for the next four years. However, his defeated opponents, especially those of the PDP and the Labour Party have been taking their defeat in bad fate. From the rhetoric that has been emanating from them and their allies, it is obvious that they would do anything to ensure the ship sinks since they are not the captain of the ship.
President Bola Tinubu upon assumption of office embarked on a set of very bold reforms, most of which were also what his major opponents promised to do if they were elected as president. As expected, the reforms came with so much pains and strain on the economy and Nigerians. Particularly, ending payment of over N300 subsidy for every litre of petrol purchased by Nigerians and allowing market forces to devalue the Naira by more than 300% was always going to be telling on the cost of living of average Nigerians.
This new economic reality naturally brought a lot of discontent among the people and even anger in many quarters. This is natural. The government laid out the reasons why these decisions had to be taken as it were the only options available for the country because of where we found ourselves. I am not going into that in this piece but it needs to be stated that the economic fundamentals (such as debt service-to-revenue ratio) were tending towards a crisis zone because of the many easier choices we had to make as a nation over the years to maintain some level of price stability.
It was this reality that made the major presidential candidates pledge to remove fuel subsidy immediately if elected and also promised to reform the foreign exchange market to remove arbitrage. Ordinarily subsidy is a good thing if you have the means to sustain it. Also, artificially pegging the dollar exchange rate to a low amount of Naira is desirable if you have enough foreign reserves to satisfy FX request for all your imports, debt service, FX repatriation requests from foreign investors etc. So, if presidential candidates are promising a bitter pill, it meant that the sweet pill was no longer efficacious.
Therefore, when the masses are angry because of rising cost of living with no commensurate rise in income, it is understandable if they take to the streets to protest and register their displeasure and demand solutions as quickly as possible. However it becomes suspicious if opposition parties and their supporters are the ones trying to trigger such protests especially where their parties and candidates promised to do exactly the same things that made the people “angry” in the first place. This is where manipulation comes in and whatever protest that results from such a manipulation becomes a political protest.
Today, elements in the opposition after seeing how Kenyan protests went, feel they can rile up the masses to protest by increasing their anger and discontent with their current everyday economic realities. A former presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, who is always itching for protest is the most notable face in the opposition that has openly mobilised people vigorously to join the protest, which he has fixed for August 1 to August 10. He christened the protests, 10 Days of Rage.
Looking at the title of the protest as well as the accompanying subtitles such as #TinubuMustGo, it is not difficult for any trained political observer to surmise what the true agenda is – create anarchy and topple the Tinubu administration if possible. On the surface the organisers will tell you the protest is all about hunger and inflation in the land but when you look at their disjointed demands or the rhetoric emanating from the protest promoters, you will struggle to see any realistic demand that has any bearing on bringing down price of food or reducing inflation. It always points to anger at not being the ones in government!
For example, an Akwa Ibom lawyer and human right wannabe activist called Inibehe Effiong, who is part of the promoters of the protest as part of his efforts to “ginger” people to join the protests said on Saturday: “the rot is so deeply entrenched, something has to happen that’ll shake this country to its very foundation and lead to a complete reset. We have the worst of us occupying political positions. People whose agenda and preoccupation are to kill, steal and destroy. There has to be a fundamental change.”
The above statement may appear as just a disgruntled citizen voicing his frustration with the current system. But when you scientifically analyse the statement with a political prism glass, you will realise that he is simply sowing subtle seeds of discontents or trying to inflame the anger of the innocent populace who expects better from the government.
You will not see Inibehe proferring practical alternatives to whatever he is condemning. In fact you won’t see him or his likes taking one specific issue and proferring alternative solutions. Their solution to hunger in Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom is #TinubuMustGo so that the “best of US can occupy political positions”. Be rest assured that the “political positions” he is referring to here does not include the Governorship seat of Akwa Ibom, his local government Chairmanship seat, ward councillor or say Commissioner of Agriculture in Akwa Ibom, his target is the seat of the President, which is currently not occupied by his preferred candidate.
If there is a need for further proof that these protests lack legitimate goals, then a cursory look at the list of demands publicly being bandied around by the organisers is enough to convince a discerning analyst or observer. For instance, the first demand by Sowore-led #RevolutionNow group and which also has Inibehe Effiong as their official Solicitor is the “scrapping of the 1999 constitution and replacing it with a People-made Constitution for the Federal Republic of Nigeria through a sovereign national conference and a National Referendum”.
The first question any sane human being will ask after seeing this first demand is, does it mean the current 1999 constitution was made by animals? Or does it mean that the revered Justice Niki Tobi who chaired the 1999 Constitution Debate Coordinating Committee and all the members of the committee drawn from across the country are not qualified to be called “humans”? The second question is, how does Sowore and Inibehe Effiong expect the process of scrapping the 1999 constitution and replacing it with the so-called people-made constitution to done within their 10 days of rage?
When you look at the other 14 demands, you will see items like: reinstate fuel subsidy and reduce PMS price to N100 per litre; reverse electric(ity) tariff and custom duties; pay Nigerian workers a minimum wage of at least N300,000 monthly; release Mazi Nnamdi Kanu; diaspora voting; shake up INEC and the judiciary; scrap the Senate; restructure Nigeria etc. A rational human being would ask, how does some of these things reduce hunger and lower inflation?
Thankfully, there are many discerning observers who have seen through the smokescreen of these protest organisers and their invisible sponsors and have been coming out publicly to warn against embarking on these protests with poorly defined objectives. Religious bodies, socio-cultural organisations, market unions and many other organisations have equally released statements dissociating their members from the planned protests.
The demands by the protest organisers show that they are not really interested in solving the economic problems Nigerians are facing but simply to bring out Nigerians onto the streets with the expectation that the protests would spiral into an insurrection once they contrive a trigger such as fake news of a massacre of protesters or some other trigger.
These sinister objectives are exactly what de-legitimises these planned protests. And with every sane voice of reason that comes out to warn against embarking on these protests, the shallow foundation upon which they hoped to build the protest keeps getting shallower until the entire agenda collapses eventually.
I want to therefore advise the political con men and election losers hoping to manipulate Nigerians into creating anarchy in their homeland to go back to the drawing board because this particular strategy has been unmasked. No reasonable group or individual wants to associate with the protests. Nigerians are not blind, they know and can feel that the worst of the economic headwinds and storm has passed. When every necessary economic parameter is analysed, it is obvious that worst is over and that the economy has began a sustainable climb to the top.
If Nigerians did not protest when the storms were raging and believed in the government, is it now that the storm has ebbed and the rainbow has appeared that they would take to the streets? The opposition elements spectacularly miscalculated on this one. They should apply again on the ballot in 2027. They thought they can replicate Kenyan protests in Nigeria but on the evidence of the mood of the nation, they have lost steam and legitimacy.