Soyinka tells Tinubu: “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.”
- Bosom Friends – Tinubu and Soyinka
By Emma Ogbuehi
Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, on Sunday, joined the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in strongly condemning the bloody crackdown on #EndBadGovernance protesters by policemen who used live bullets to quell mostly peaceful protest.
Soyinka warned that the objectionable practice of serving of bullets where bread was pleaded “is ominous retrogression,” a prelude, he insists “to far more desperate upheavals, not excluding revolutions.”
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) had on Saturday strongly condemned what it described as large-scale killing of protesters by policemen, saying it was shocked that the police could allegedly murder over 40 protesters in just two days.
In a statement titled “STOP THIS MASSACRE”, NLC President, Comrade Joe Ajaero, threatened that organised labour might be forced to declare an industrial action to protect innocent citizens if the wanton destruction of human lives by the police continues.
Speaking in the same vein, Atiku, also on Saturday, condemned the use of live ammunition on protesters by security men.
Atiku who was the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 election also beckoned on the international community, including the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, to closely monitor the situation in Nigeria and hold its leadership and security apparatus accountable.
Calling the act heinous, Atiku said the killing of protesters by security men is utterly intolerable and reminiscent of the dark days of military dictatorship.
Soyinka, who joined the chorus on Sunday after listening to President Bola Tinubu’s national broadcast, faulted him for not addressing the violent crackdown by security forces on #EndBadGovernance protesters.
Soyinka, in a statement, expressed concern over the president’s omission of this critical issue.
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.
READ ALSO: Atiku condemns use of live ammunition on protesters, implores UN, ICC to pay attention
NLC raises alarm over massacre of protesters by police
“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. All it takes is to recall its own history, then exercise the will to commence a lasting transformation, inserting a break in the chain of lethal responses against civic society.
“Today’s marchers may wish to consider adopting the key songs of Hubert Ogunde’s BREAD AND BULLETS, if only to inculcate a sense of shame in the continuing failure to transcend the lure of colonial inheritance where we all were at the receiving end. One way or the other, this vicious cycle must be broken.”