A Scream In The Streets  

(Memo to:

Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP)

Campaign Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL)

Association of Nigerian Professional Bodies

National Association of Nigerian Students

Nigerian Labour Congress) 

This is an invitation to you to deploy, together, a nationwide mass demonstration against the corruption, hypocrisy and indifferent leadership that has run Nigeria aground. 

The time is right. A sprint of Usain Bolt dimensions is required just to bring Nigeria abreast of where nations of our potential were 10 or 20 years ago, but our leaders are still waving only clichés they have neither intention nor imagination to pursue. 

The Rule of law. Vision 20-2020. Seven-point plan. Electoral reform. One of the world’s most advanced. Development. Rebranding. 

We know: you and me, that they are all empty. We know because while they spew those banal concepts and insult those who actually pursue work, their own conduct warns us the future is in jeopardy. 

What confidence did the Ekiti re-run election teach you? 

What are you learning from the trial of James Ibori in Asaba, at the hands of a judge of his own choosing? 

What have you learnt from the government’s award of billions in contracts weekly that it conveniently neglects to implement? 

What do you make of the current bragging of the People’s Democratic Party that it intends to “win” all non-PDP states over the next couple of years? 

What have you learnt from the fact that when our president is ailing, he flees abroad, leaving ordinary Nigerians to die in our local hospitals everyday?  

What are you learning from the magic show that passes for politics in PDP-Anambra? 

Compatriots: it is all before our eyes: nothing has changed, and the past is our future. 

I know you all know this. I have read public petitions, articles and statements authored by you. 

It is all well-intentioned, but misplaced. You are showing the glory of the village full moon to Stevie Wonder. The leadership to which you send your messages neither reads nor cares. It is either unchanging, or unchangeable. 

My message to you, therefore, is: Stop scratching your heads. Put down the pen. Fifty years of memo-writing has yielded no progress. Let us rise, and seize the history of this nation in our hands. 

And I say the time is now because only two weeks ago, our Spectator-Leader, Umaru Yar’Adua, rose to disclaim a federal order issued in his name that, he claimed, violated our constitution. 

The man lives. And whatever was the cause, he rose in some defence of his name. This would be a good time to send him an even more important message: a Gani Fawehinmi-inspired scream. 

I should know. I have written about Nigeria from teenage to grey hair. I understand now why many that took the same path have surrendered their bylines and retreated: in Nigeria, criticism leads only to starvation. Critics are dismissed as people who have not had a chance at the buffet. 

Something else: Nigeria drifts also because our leaders find us easy to manipulate. They prey on our divisions, our vanities, our simplistic hopes that they will look down and see us, Lazarus, dying for a drop of water. They prey on us while we pray. In effect, we drift not because they are strong, but because we permit them the knowledge we are weak. 

Think about it: despite the evil governments and the mess they have made of us in the past generation, the authors of our plight remain among our nation’s most powerful today. The monsters they created are responsible for our financial collapse, our political nightmare, our economic doldrums, and our ethical wasteland. 

In the past few weeks, notable Nigerians have spoken about where we go from here: Balarabe Musa, Chinua Achebe, Olu Falae, Patrick Utomi. Your organizations too. 

Despite this, the federal government still lacks a gear by which true justice is dispensed and everyone is the same before the law. Brazenness and impunity remain the rule. State power is not being used to power the state or defend the weak. As we speak, the laughable House of Reps is pursuing a law that would place its members above the law. The privileged are providing for themselves. 

In other words, even if it does seem we can go no lower, we are. 

In recent public statements, some of you have spoken eloquently about these. I will not paraphrase you. I will not quote you. I will not even celebrate your sharp turns of phrase or outbursts of oratory until you admit that words and petitions are no longer enough. 

That is why I urge you to develop a strategy of taking our collective destiny to the streets—peacefully—to deliver a clear, proactive message to the government about our collapse. In subsequent weeks or months, depending on what your tactics you agree, demonstrators can picket specific institutions or offices and demand justice and accountability. They can merely sit in front of specific buildings and eat guguru and epa for days, until the occupants beg to be allowed to run away. 

Compatriots: History assures us there is power in the streets. There is untold power in the readiness of the disadvantaged and the exploited and the weak to walk together and talk together and sing a common song together. On the contrary, there is only weakness where they permit themselves only scared whispering and grumbling and writing in their corners and individual little groups. 

Let us, one and all, strip to our most active attire and walk the streets in search of justice. This is particularly important now: halfway from our last false start and the eve of another belt of elections. It is the eve of Nigeria inflicting the ‘Rebrand Nigeria’ buffoonery internationally. It is the eve of Nigeria’s 2010 arrival at the United Nations Security Council to make a case abroad it refuses to make at home. It is the eve of Nigeria trying to convince the world there is nothing wrong in doing nothing to implement the Millennium Development Goals. 

And yes, Yar’Adua is currently in Nigeria, not Germany or Saudi Arabia, and reportedly breathing on his own. We must take this opportunity to make an impression on him and the regression he has superintended. 

We are tired of whimpering in our little corners, such as your bedroom and this column, and getting nowhere. Let us advance outdoors and scream together, in the streets. You have the organizations that can inspire every Nigerian to join a peaceful demonstration of your definition. Let us announce that Nigerians are no longer content to leave Nigeria to travel unsupervised. We have the power, in peaceful protests, to paralyze in order to energize.  

This is in our hands. Let politicians and professionals and trade unionists and students join hands with housewives and teachers and drivers and nurses and journalists and clerks and doctors and drivers and policemen and artisans and lawyers and the unemployed so we can unchain each other, and speak with one irrepressible voice. I will be there. 

It is time. Let us seize it and determine the future, or shut up. 

• sonala.olumhense@gmail.com

Robot  # 1 | 25.10.2009 03:41

...Read the full article.

PAPIG  # 2 | 25.10.2009 06:47

TIME FOR ACTION IS NOW - ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! We as a people have the wherewithal to have a NIGERIA WE WOULD ALL BE PROUD OF. Endles of PRAYERS IN CHURCHES OF ALL SHADES, MOSQUES, SHANGO OR OGUN SHRINES, SYNAGOGUES WILL NEVER HELP. This will hold us down forever and all our corrupt and murderous leaders are respected practising members of these faiths. It is in their INTERESTS for us to rely ON GOD AND PRAYERS. We must ensue parochial sectionalism. ABACHA and BABANGIDA are mindless murderous rogues and so therefore JAMES IBORI OR ALAMIYESEIGHA must be hero-worshiped by the NIGER DELTA people or the admirers of YOU CHOP AND I CHOP POLITICS for looting the peoples TREASURY?. How perverse can this be? A THIEF MUST REMAIN A THIEF IRRESPECTIVE OF ETHNIC ORIGIN AND MUST BE PROSECUTED NO MATTER HOW LONG AGO HIS/HER CRIMES. We must encourage a very CREDIBLE OPPOSITION run by men and women of INTEGRITY AND HONOUR LIKE BALARABE MUSA, FEMI FALANA, BIODUN JEYIFO, EDWIN MADUNAGU and not by men and women who have already shown signs and evidence of KLEPTOMANIA AND CORRUPT TENDENCIES LIKE BOLA TNUBU, ATIKU ABUBAKAR, EL RUFAI, KALU, ANDY UBAH OR E K CLARK. We must NEVER REPLACE ONE SETS OF THIEVES WITH ANOTHER and we must start TODAY. We need to POUR INTO THE STREETS TO TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK and START A FIGHTING FUND TO BACK OUR DEMONSTRATIONS. Do not forget that the AMNESTY TO THE NIGER DELTA MILITANTS BY YAR'ARDUA IS PURELY FOR THE PDP TO HAVE THE FIRE POWER TO FACILITATE MASSIVE RIGGING OF THE NEXT ELECTION IN THESE SAME STREETS WE WANT TO OCCUPY. ALL CORRUPT NIGER DELTA MILITANTS MUST BE NEUTRALISED NOW! THANK YOU SONALA FOR STARTING THE BALL ROLLING. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH AND THE FIGHTBACK IS NOW, NOT TOMORROW!

otito  # 3 | 25.10.2009 10:17

What SPECIFICALLY can Nigerians in diaspora contribute?

Dapxin  # 4 | 25.10.2009 14:36

=otito;399333>What SPECIFICALLY can Nigerians in diaspora contribute? Make space on your intinerary to protest against any abuja fool once they come around visiting (gallivanting). It is helping...

emj  # 5 | 25.10.2009 19:01

We are tired of whimpering in our little corners, such as your bedroom and this column, and getting nowhere. Let us advance outdoors and scream together, in the streets. You have the organizations that can inspire every Nigerian to join a peaceful demonstration of your definition. Let us announce that Nigerians are no longer content to leave Nigeria to travel unsupervised. We have the power, in peaceful protests, to paralyze in order to energize. Thanks Sonala.....enough is enough. Time for the Agbekoya(reject suffering ) tactics:p

BiafranPrincess  # 6 | 25.10.2009 23:22

Noted Sir. I'm ready to act...any corrupt govt official heading to Canada soon??? You'll get a piece of us.

akuluouno  # 7 | 26.10.2009 11:22

Dear SO, Please lets learn from history and take it sofly sofly. Who will lead this movement? I hope that it does not signal the end of rotational presidency? As Onye Igbo, I hope our desire and turn will not be scuttled? There are ethnic, cultural, religious and other challenges to the mobilisation of Nigerians on a massive scale. Even in the halcyon days of nationalist mobilisation, we are all aware of the influence of these factors that I mentioned earlier in the mass mobilisation of Nigerians. Let us be more real rather than ideal in these matters. My heart goes with all you have said but my head cautions Not Yet Uhuru:frown:

MrOneNaija  # 8 | 26.10.2009 12:47

THE PITFALLS OF PRO-DEMOCRACY ADVOCACY IN CONTEMPORARY NIGERIA At the height of the rigging and kleptocratic hegemony of Ali Baba Aremu Obasanjo and his PDP, any talk of peaceful street demonstrations to register democratic opposition to the administrative truancy of the usurpers then holding sway at Aso Rock was more often than not dismissed by the very voices that were supposed to serve as checks against the criminal impunity of Nigeria's so-called ruling class. For instance, in the aftermath of the "419" elections of 2003, notable figures and outfits in the likes of Wole Soyinka, Oshiomhole (at the time, the NLC boss) and Pastor Mbang (then president of the CAN) did robustly castigate those wanting to take to the streets to show their angst against the electoral heist by the PDP. Spurious and puerile alibis were advanced in what was quite obviously a shameless show of sectarian or primordial support for the ex-tyrant. Adams Oshiomhole is on record for having stated that the NLC was ready to violently attack the ANPP leadership that was clamoring for massive public demonstrations against the rigged elections. As for the established pro-democracy cum human rights advocacy groups and their representatives, they simply abdicated by taking refuge in silly excuses one of which claimed rather vacuously that street protests would invariably lead to military intervention! And it is worth mentioning that critical sections of the national media did play a dubious part in their complacent and generally pro-regime stance during much of the last Obasanjo/PDP despotism. So, the question to ask is this: What has changed now to give Nigerians hope that the bare-faced duplicity and sometimes outright support for tyranny that were on display on the part of supposed democrats or men of the people have transparently taken flight and in their place the common good has been consciously erected as an enduring national value? P.S. The above issues and related questions are more extensively investigated in an article by Aonduna Tondu (My humble self). Entitled "Ekwueme: The Abdication of Nigeria's Democrats", the document is availabe on NVS, at the following link: http://www.nigeriavillagesq...

edoji  # 9 | 26.10.2009 14:01

I was asking a friend today: If according to Lamido Sanusi, the sacked Chief Executive Officers and directors of eight banks allegedly looted N1trillion from their Banks and according to the EFCC, 56 Politicians including Olabode George allegedly collectively removed over N243 billion from the nation’s treasury; How long must we wait before moving to stop this guys? Last week, The Chairman of RMAFC, Mr. Hamman Tukur, warned that in view of the way the nation’s economy was being plundered and the fact that the federation excess crude account dropped from $27 billion to $7billion, it would not be long before the nation ground to a halt and one day, you will wake up and there will be no government.” (http://elombah.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1994:nigeria-is-broke&catid=30:the-economy&Itemid=41) Will we wait until our country quenches before we all act or do we imagine that handing out 2 year sentences (as done today against Olabode George) will do the trick? Or will we allow charlatans like Mr. Ayogu Eze, chairman of the Senate Committee on Media - who believes that corruption among politicians could not in any way be compared with corruption among bankers. In other words, attacks on politicians are unwarranted, as the group is not guiltier than the rest of Nigerians - to continue running (ruining) our country?. I continue to ask; Is it not yet time to say, enough is enough? Hmm!!

Careman001  # 10 | 26.10.2009 22:44

Akuluounu, I'm afraid, but I think Nigeria is where it is presently because of your type. Even a blind man can read the handwriting in the wall that Nigeria is heading to the gulag. The world's prophet (the Americans) has given Nigeria till 2015 to remain as a nation. If Yardua should run for second term, that makes him the last president of a country that would later be remembered by the great river that runs across it (The Niger). Nigeria politicians are not unaware of the trend, andthat is why they are stacking their foreign accounts in preparation for the day the bubble will burst. So, your talk about rotational presidency betrays your imbecility. If I were you, I will team up with any effort to revive Biafra machine. This is the best time for Biafra vision. Or do you think the East will be the way it is, if it has her destiny in her hands? If you cannot fight to salvage the country from its impeding doom and ruin, then, don't dampen the spirit of those who see beyond their noses. Any sensible Nigerian must respond to this clarion call from SO. Even those of us in the Diaspora must begin to strategise on how to respond to the overbearing decay of Nigeria politicians. Indeed enough is enough! That should be the heartcry of men and women who know what dignity is, who know what it means to live with unfettered conscience. If we failed to respond in such a manner as SO prescribed; then Nigerian must be prepared for the fate of cowards and jelly livers. Enough indeed, is enough!

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