There was a country.
I weep for Nigeria as I sit writing this from Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom.
What began as youth seeking justice against Nigeria’s Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) has morphed into the Nigerian governments deployment of its military and police apparatus to murder peaceful protesters.
Here’s my take on what has happened, more importantly why it happened & what it means going forward.
What has happened
Nigeria is a very populous country(~200M - 7th globally projected to be 3rd in 3 decades). Nigeria is also a very fragmented country in every sense of the word. Two major religions (Christianity & Islam), <300 Ethnic groups (of those the major being Fulani, Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba) very distinct geographic boundaries (East, North, West) & staggering economic inequality. Each of these factors intersect with one another & shape the belief systems and realities of Nigeria’s citizens.
All of the above makes developing a broad coalition focused around collective issues difficult to build. Even if the majority of Nigerians are struggling with the same realities (No Stable power, inadequate healthcare, poor educational systems, unsustainable food prices etc) the root cause of these issues may be attributed to different factors based on your belief system.
Now - why did I give all that background?
When #EndSars began to build momentum. It was quite exciting to me because it seemed like the coalition being built was broader than usual - it was something garnering relatively widespread support on a specific issue - that had been pushed on before - with specific outcomes & relatively nationwide mobilization. A more broad coalition.
Everyone in Nigeria understands that we have poor governance. For the most part we lament it & feel powerless to do anything about it. However we are a democracy hence we should be able to influence our leaders. There was a real sense building that we actually could do something to get our leaders to change our realities & as #EndSars garnered more progress and the conversation began to become broader - it moved from just SARS to Police reform and then to bettering governance as a whole.
This makes sense because we realize that SARS is a symptom - a symptom of a policing system that is not adequately funded or supported & a political and economic system that has been unable to fund and deploy resources to keep the country secure.
Let me pause here.
Amidst this the government deployed one of its most effective tried & true tactics - lip service. Trying to do enough to show they are listening and showing a veneer of change but not doing anything of consequence. They disbanded SARS & said they would create SWAT. Same thing with a new name essentially.
Well - Nigerians correctly saw through this guise & did not let up on pushing for real reform.
This is when the government realized they had to take a more swift and aggressive approach. As I mentioned earlier the protests against SARS had garnered relatively widespread support & approval in Nigeria & now also outside Nigeria (CEO of Twitter, International media houses, Global celebrities etc). The protests were palatable. So the government’s focus was to seemingly turn them into anarchy so that the only resolution they would have to ‘keep the peace’ was to deploy the military. This would be a show of force and intimidation to quickly quell any other uprisings & it will be obfuscated and be outlined as a rogue action and not state sanctioned.
Slowly but surely we started seeing reports of thugs infiltrating protests, beating police, destroying property & even prison breaks.
These all reached a fever pitch on Tuesday October 20th 2020 [10/20/20] we had the #LekkiMassacre where 78 (& counting) unarmed protesters were murdered in cold blood by the military - not to mention other shootings that had taken place in other parts of the country that day and the days preceding it.
This is where we are today. Government is telling us & the world they don’t know who gave the order & is pointing fingers. The President is (apparently) out of the country & nowhere to be seen or heard
Why it’s happened
It has always been the Nigerian governments strategy to feign ignorance & keep moving - after all, “Who go check am - E go again”
When a government agency can say that a snake swallowed $100K+ for education & a minister being deposed for stealing Millions of dollars from the Niger Delta development corporation faints to get out of questioning. No one is held responsible - there is no accountability. it will indeed continue at the highest level - where there is no accountability for human life.
Our current President is a retired military general & part of the army during the 80s - the cabinet and many of the leadership are masters of using force & fear to control and deliver results for only themselves. This result while devastating & cruel is actually to be expected. No one gets brownie points for thinking something terrible happens and then it happens - that’s not my point. My point is that we are in a pseudo-democracy run by the actual thugs that SARS is made to stop. Our politicians are the most adept armed robbers I know. Armed with potent policy as well as very real weapons to steal life & wealth from our country. There are both the human rights violations of right now but also the less discussed but more insidious daily and policy violations which in the aggregate cause even more suffering - like a cancer slowly killing.
This is a function of us having Extractive political institutions. This is a form of governance where the economic institutions are designed to enrich the elite and those who have political power at the expense of the people. These institutions do not provide people with incentives to save, invest & innovate.
Nations fail today because they have extractive institutions. Histories of countries change the nature of the elite & intensity and style of extraction but they all have the same core tenants (Uzbekistan, N Korea, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Colombia, Venezuela, Egypt).
This leads to a vicious cycle where extractive political institutions create extractive economic Institutions which further support the extractive political ones because economic wealth and power can buy political power.
So you can see how a regime that is highly extractive will work swiftly to end any semblance of real organizing for political reform - because this current form works for them well.
So where does this leave Nigeria?
Going Forward
History is not destiny but failing to learn from history is idiocy. Extractive institutions can be replaced by inclusive ones.
France, Britain, Japan, Botswana all examples of political revolutions where they went from extractive institutions to inclusive political & economic ones.
There are three core tenets & confluence of factors: Critical Junctures, Broad coalitions pushing for change & the contingent path of history - i.e. luck/chance.
Critical Junctures are periods when institutions are amenable to change in a way that they are not amenable most of the time- some examples are the bubonic plague, great depression, 9/11, industrial revolution. We are in the midst of one now globally with the coronavirus pandemic. These are largely out of our control but what’s important is to be ready to take advantage of them when they arrive - which leads us to factor #2
Political Revolution by a broad coalition is crucial.
Even when civil wars take place they don’t guarantee a change from extractive regimes. An example is the American civil war between the North & the South - this did not destroy the political power of the planter elite in the south. The southerners just restructured the law (Jim Crow) for them to still control low cost labor for plantations. In Sub Saharan Africa we’ve seen countless regimes where new entrants declared revolution but they kept the same extractive institutions.
The need for a broad coalition of groups to be present from all parts of society is necessary so that one group's interests can’t be narrowly served & so they cannot take full control post revolution. A good example is the glorious revolution in England: they had merchants who were trading goods & didn’t want to be taxed unfairly, you had the industrialists who wanted better infrastructure for their production, you had the working peoples who wanted better labor protection & they even had the aristocracy who were not aligned with the crowns encroachment of power enshrined in the magna carter. Botswana’s transition and those of other countries are something I may spend more time on in another post.
When we ask ourselves what that broad coalition could look like in Nigeria it makes me think of Brazil’s use of participatory budgeting to form more inclusive institutions.
Brazil formed a working group made up of a broad swathe of society including political opposition groups, labor unions, trade groups, religious organizations & students. It helped create & revitalize communal society and civic participation. Civic participation helped occupy the political gap left by the military. The country also dropped poverty from 45 to 30 percent and became part of BRIC nations. (Not to say Brazil hasn’t and doesn’t have major issues or that all of these gains were from participatory budgeting but the act itself helped involve a broad swathe of people which encouraged real pluralism).
The contingent path of history or luck is exactly that - sometimes the stars really have to align but we have to be ready with our broad coalition when they do.
We need inclusive political institutions that create inclusive economic ones where property & life are safeguarded, infrastructure in the form of structural, health & education is shared to create more equal opportunity & finally encouraging investments in new techniques and technology to create shared value & prosperity.
To get on the path towards transformation from extractive to inclusive we need:
#1 Some sort of centralized order for social movements that get off the ground that don't descend into lawlessness/chaos
#2 Some pre-existing or new political institutions with a basis of pluralism that represents a broad swathe of Nigeria’s very diverse populace. With a focus on what unites us not divides us.
#3 Presence of civil society institutions to coordinate demands of the populace so opposition can't just be crushed by elites or have power just grabbed by one to the other.
#4 Trusted, reliable & free media channels that can coordinate and galvanize people -
Tactically there are many ways & things that can be done along these 4 axes and I don’t have all the answers right now however we need to channel this energy and ensure its a movement and not a moment - we need to build on the alliances that have been made and further bring in necessary stakeholders and actors - young and old alike.
In the medium to long term be prepared to support & help those who mobilize when they do
In the short term I’ve posted a few ways below to support directly those affected in the massacre & bring them justice as well as those affected by SARS & ways to put international pressure on our political leaders - I will continue to update this with resources to help as they emerge.
So today I weep for Nigeria as I know so many of my country women & men do - but don’t mistake my and our tears for apathy. No - not this time. Our tears will be channeled into strategic action. Locally & globally. We have too many fallen heroes - too many martyrs - too many lives lost. We don’t need heroes - we need collective strategic and prolonged political action. 2023 is already upon us and the years after. We must also face this reality - it will get worse - it will - before it gets better.
My prayer is that the lives and suffering will never be in vain as this fight will be long. But I know it can be won.
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HOW YOU CAN HELP TODAY
Amplify this message and make it publicly known that the your community is against the Nigerian government's efforts to squash these protests.
Join the social media campaign with the hashtag #EndSARS.
Hit up and pressure traditional media where you’re located to cover the story.
Donate to keep the protests going.
Donations are used to feed protestors, hire ambulances, pay for security, pay hospital bills of the injured, legal fees of protesters and other support.
Donations are being collected here: https://feministcoalition2020.com/
You can find more information here:
Note: A lot of the ideas herein are taken from Why Nations Fail which I would highly recommend as a grounding in economic & political history of many countries.
Note: I’m not an economist or policy wonk/expert but these are my raw & genuine thoughts and a way for me to process what’s currently happening and begin thinking about my own and our roles. I’ll be updating with sources/ pictures & other threads
For more thoughts on the broader 80Y strategy see 2100 an African Federation of Wealth for the People
This is an interesting read Uzoma
Uzo, this is a beatiful, truthful and deeply felt peice. Especially the final message which sums up.my own bitter feelings too: "So today I weep for Nigeria as I know so many of my country women & men do - but don’t mistake my and our tears for apathy. No - not this time. Our tears will be channeled into strategic action. " YES. #EndsSars is like #M4BL - don't be deceived by the hashtag. These are wide and spreading popular movements, organized by a new globally aware generation the best of my generation have raised, are still raising through our classrooms. the future is yours to take and lead.