Twelve months after many Nigerians took to the streets to register their displeasure at what they described as widespread hardship in the country, conveners of the #EndBadGovernance protest, economists, and public analysts say the plight of the masses has either remained unchanged or even worsened.
Held from August 1 to August 10, 2024, the protest saw massive demonstrations in several parts of the country, particularly in Lagos, Kano, Kaduna, Gombe, Jigawa, Borno, and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, degenerating into violence and looting of public places in some states, reports Daily Trust.
Over 1,200 persons were arrested, and at least 24 protesters were killed, according to Amnesty International, which accused the police of using excessive force against demonstrators.
Following the arraignment of 119 protesters, including minors, before a federal high court in Abuja, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu ordered the release of all persons arrested and detained over the protest.
The president also set up a committee to look at the circumstances surrounding the arrest and detention of the minors and was quoted by Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, as saying that “All the law enforcement agents related to the case will be investigated and anyone found wanting will be brought to book.”
One year on, no law enforcement agent has been held accountable, and there has been no improvement in governance so far, said Deji Adeyanju, a human rights lawyer and one of the conveners of the protest.
“The hunger has even increased. The issues have not been addressed and it shows we have not learnt from the past. One would have thought that the protesters and victims who lost their lives would have been compensated. Nothing of such has been done and it is unfortunate,” Adeyanju told our correspondent.
He said talks were ongoing on a possible peaceful demonstration to mark the anniversary of the protest.
“One year after the #EndBadGovernance protest, Nigerians are becoming poorer, the cost of living keeps rising, the minimum wage of workers at the moment cannot take them home and the welfare of Nigerians is comatose,” Junwon Sanyaolu, another organiser of the protest and national coordinator of Take-it-Back Movement, lamented.
Sanyaolu said the socioeconomic situation of the country aftermath of the protest had only justified their resolve to hit the streets despite entreaties from some quarters, noting that mobilisation is massively ongoing to stage another protest soon.
“Governance is defined by the ability of the government to guarantee the security and welfare of its people. The Tinubu government has failed if we are to assess it based on these critical indices. We have seen incessant killings, especially in Plateau and hundreds of thousands are being displaced. It is an eyesore. The state of health facilities in the country is terrible while the president continues to visit hospitals abroad. These are critical issues we raised during the protest.
“The Cybercrime Act, which is used to hound and repress the right to freedom of expression, continues to exist despite our demand that it should be repealed. Opposition voices have been victims. Journalists and rights activists are being persecuted under this act. Massive mobilisation is ongoing across the country. Nigerians are going to respond sooner than expected because we can’t continue like this. We will hit the streets again,” he said.
The Chairman, Northern Comrades Movement of Nigeria (NCMM), Jabir Ibrahim Yaro, lamented that inflation and insecurity, particularly in the North West, have become more worrisome, with many people stuck in the throes of hunger.
“Nothing has changed,” he declared.
“Things have just escalated after the protest and Nigerians are experiencing a situation worse than it was before the protest.”
“We are critically watching to see if things will change. From now till the end of this year, we will continue to watch the situation. If nothing changes, we may come up with a different strategy to press home our demand. Hunger is killing people and the government is doing nothing to address all the pressing issues bedeviling the citizens,” Yaro added.
All efforts by our correspondent to get the reaction of the government on the position of the organisers were not successful.
Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, could not be reached on the phone, also Dr Daniel Bwala, the Special Adviser to the President on Policy Communications’ line was unreachable.
The duo were yet to reply to the text and WhatsApp messages sent to their numbers as at the time of filing this report.
Also, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris could not be reached on the phone and was yet to reply to the text message sent to his number at press time.
A professor of economics at Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ogun State, Prof. Sheriffdeen Tella, maintained that one year after the protest, hardship occasioned by high inflation, unemployment and naira devaluation it sought to address, lingers.
He said, “We still have problems of huge unemployment, high inflation and devaluation. Productivity is still very low. Maybe there is improvement in terms of students’ loans, but when we look at the economic situation, we cannot say things have improved yet. Some people have been telling the president something else. He has to look at the data, and not listen to people who will not tell him the truth.”
The economist urged the government to bring down inflation by reducing the interest rate on loans to encourage the revival of dying businesses and expansion of fledgling ones so they could employ more people.
“There is a need for the government to do a lot of things concerning the economy. We have some growth, but it has not translated to reducing unemployment. It is big businesses that are seeing growth. Small businesses have not and they are the ones that employ more people. If they can expand, income will spread.
“People are taxed more now. The charges on electricity, telecommunication and so on, are eating deep into businesses. There is a need for the government to look at its policies and fine-tune them to better the lot of the people,” Prof Tella added.
Professor Hussainatu Abdullahi, a development economist and lecturer at the Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto (UDUS), said the standard of living continued to worsen because government policies lacked a human face.
“Nothing has changed,” she decried, saying if any, the economic situation had only gone worse.
“The inflation rate remains very high. Nothing is working. Nigeria today has just two classes: you either belong to the rich or the poor. The minimum wage is N70,000, yet it can barely buy a bag of rice.
“Borrowing is supposed to improve our economic situation, but all the money borrowed so far, what has it done for Nigerians? Nothing; instead, the masses keep suffering. The government should put a human face to its policies; it should make policies that are relevant to our system, not what the IMF is telling it to do. What are we exporting that made us devalue the naira so low? It has not helped us,” she stated.
Former President, Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), Malachy Ugwumadu, said the quality of life has been so debased that many poor Nigerians are being subjected to poor living conditions, unsure of where the next meal would come from.
He said the masses are now exposed to new dimensions of “the economic suffocation” manifested in the form of high electricity tariff and high cost of fuel.
He said, “The government should realise that those issues that led to #EndBadGovernance protest are still very much with us. People remain perpetually concerned about the borrowing habit of the government. It is not fair that the present generation of rulers is accumulating an inexplicable debt burden for generations yet to come.
“However, we cannot ignore the effort that the government is making in terms of access to education through NELFUND, effort to stem insecurity in the country and incentives directed to those in the agricultural sector to guarantee food security.”
A public analyst, Barrister Liborous Oshoma, posited that Nigerians would continue to face hunger as long as unemployment remains high and production falls extremely short of consumption.
“Things have not changed. No society can end hunger when people rely on the government to give them handouts, when the government does not ensure that the private sector drives the economy. No society can end hunger when the microeconomy is not in alignment with the macroeconomy,” he added.
Moving forward, Oshoma said the concept of #EndBadGovernance was too broad and should be narrowed to a specific issue to drive positive change.
“It is nebulous, unlike #EndSARS. We should take the issues one after the other,” he said, calling for leadership reform.
“We need to recalibrate it and ensure that our way of growing leadership is by training. Once you have money, you don’t need training to be a leader in Nigeria. We have to get our leadership right to drive the reorientation. That is when people will realise that political office is not to enrich themselves, but to provide proper governance,” he said.
