HOW CAN ANYONE WHO CLAIMS TO BE CIVILIZED CALL FOR INSTANT DEATH OR ‘SHOOT-ON-SIGHT’ ORDERS AGAINST PROTESTERS???

I have largely stepped aside from engaging in heated discussions about issues in our nation for my own sanity. It simply hurts too much sometimes, but I think you do not need any more indication that our nation is losing its way when so-called national leaders, first-class Obas, top lawyers including SANs, and some self-acclaimed democrats start calling for instant death against protesters, even violent ones, for daring to protest against hardship and an under-performing government.

Since some people have been trying to make this issue an ethnic one between Igbos vs. Yorubas to distract us from the real issues, I must stress I am a very proud Yoruba double prince and my beef right now is with the government under a Yoruba man. So, let’s leave tribal issues out of this matter of hunger, pain, and suffering in the land, and the people’s planned response to it.

• Hunger does not know tribe.
• Mass unemployment among our youths, graduates, and even elders does not know tribe.
• Outrage at the federal government buying more new airplanes, and legislators driving around in N200,000,000 cars while telling Nigerians the country cannot afford a N100,000 minimum wage, does not know ethnic group.
• The quadrupling of the price of essential commodities and fuel prices in one year is not a matter for tribal or ethnic debate. We ALL suffer it.
• Runaway inflation and the alarming rise of food prices do not know tribe.
• Our currency losing over 70% of its value since this government took over does not know tribe.
• Outrage at the ostentatious lives of our leaders who keep borrowing trillions to finance their profligate government does not know tribe.
• The continuous theft of our national resources with no known looter or oil thief being brought to book is not a matter of tribal conflict.
• The continuous frustration of our ever-complaining EFCC Chairperson, who is being prevented by the corrupt leadership class from doing his job of arresting and prosecuting suspected looters, is not a matter of Igbos vs. Yorubas. Many of the looters he could not arrest are Yorubas while he himself is a Yoruba man.

To me, these are the issues acting as catalysts for the impetus of some people who now want to organize nationwide protests to make the government do better. It is not an ethnic thing but a survival thing for many Nigerians regardless of tribe or clime. What is good for the goose should also be good for the gander. You cant rise to power under protests by dissatieified nigerians and thn say those same people cannot demonstrate against you when you fall short of their expectations. Thas democractic hypocrisy in my book and it must be called regardless of the tribe of the occupant of Aso Rock.

Unless you are intellectually corrupt, or a stakeholder in the looting of Nigeria, you really cannot deny that things are not going well in Nigeria right now. The facts stated above are apparent even to a 10-year-old child who must have noticed his/her parents reduced everything around the house, including his allowance to buy chocolate or ‘boli and epa’, depending on whether they live in Ikoyi or Fadeyi side of life.

This Tinubu Government came to power promising us relief from the hardships, and the leader promised to solve the problems they claimed Buhari (the same man that the current president pushed into power 9 years ago, by the way) created in 8 years of backward movement for our nation in almost all areas, but now after one year, everything is WORSE.

Those are facts nobody is disputing or can honestly dispute unless they work in Aso Rock and see progress that we obviously cannot see even with telescopes and they dont wANt people ot protest against THAT?

The government and its apologists keep saying people should stay in their homes and endure. They are telling them not to exercise their democratic rights not to protest. They are even openly calling for protesters to be shot on sight, taken out in a body bag, or sent to hell by their supposedly-fearsome deities like Agodongo, Oro, Ayilala, and Sopono, to mention a few. When challenged, some of these people, some of who are Obas, Senior Advocates of Nigeria, top government functionaries, and reputed ‘democrats,’ claim that they are only calling for death or a shoot-on-sight order against violent protesters. Seriously?

But the question I must ask in this piece is, which civilized nation shoots its own citizens on sight, even if their peaceful demonstration turns violent, as most protests do? Which responsible democrat or elder will ask that their own citizens who turn violent on the streets while protesting should be mowed down like dogs used for rituals to their gods?

To be clear, despite all the noise and bluster, the so-called protesters have not done anything yet. They have not turned violent or asked for any violence to be done. They keep insisting they want to come out and do peaceful protests (they even asked the government to provide safe passage and protection to allow them to demonstrate peacefully). Yet, we hear of senior leaders of society, first-class Obas and their chiefs, Lawyer SANs, industry leaders, government officials, etc., who should be providing and protecting their citizens, talk unabashedly of their plans to shoot protesters on sight and use their Ayilala, Oro, Ogondongo deities to ‘bury’ any protester who dares to come out and protest.

These unempathetic leaders try to argue that they were only talking of killing violent protesters, and I must ask them, in what sane country is that done, even if protests turn violent? We saw what happened in the USA with the BLM movement, but the USA government did NOT shoot any looter or violent person on sight. Yet our leaders, lawyers, and Obas feel comfortable openly advocating a shoot-on-sight position against ‘violent’ protesters in their own land, even when nobody has turned violent yet.

When pressed, these ‘leaders’ claim they don’t want to wait until the kind of violence they witnessed during ENDsars happened again. Yet they forgot that the violent aftermath of the peaceful ENDsars protests was triggered by unknown soldiers, that a sitting government admitted he invited to come and help control the previously peaceful demonstrations of over 2 weeks. (To be fair, the same governor of Lagos has denied ever telling soldiers to shoot anyone, and I sincerely believe him since he is a man I personally know and doubt could be so murderous, but the fact remains he invited soldiers in peacetime to come and monitor peaceful demonstrations where youths were singing National Anthems and therefore must bear some responsibility for the aftermath).

Bottom line is ENDsars protests were PEACEFUL until the government interfered, and whatever the unfortunate and sad violence that followed that, it should not make us overcompensate to the point where we want to take the position of killing anyone who dared to step out to protest or who demonstrated violence during protests. It’s barbaric and unacceptable for any government or leader to take that position.

On a personal note, my own mother died during the violent aftermath that followed the Ali-Must-go demonstrations of 1978 that turned violent after a few weeks when it was hijacked by thugs, just exactly like ENDsars did. But despite my ongoing pain at the loss of my mother at 14 due to protests that started out peaceful and turned violent, I am still not against peaceful demonstrations by citizens, even with my very personal pain and knowledge that any peaceful protest can turn violent at any time. It’s part of democracy, and I will be damned if I will support those who would want to take that birthright away from the people.

I am so embarrassed and ashamed of some of our leaders, especially some Yoruba leaders who try to define everything in terms of Igbos trying to incite violence. People I never even suspected were igbophobic are now openly throwing public hateful words at all Igbos, even if indeed they have a few violent Igbos just like there are a few violent Yorubas and Hausas and violent people in all tribes, and it hurts.

To be perfectly clear, I do not condone violent demonstrations under any guise, and I do not support any protest tagged ‘Days of Rage’ because I don’t know of any ‘rage’ that can be peaceful. However, I think it’s just heartbreakingly sad to see those who rose to power by nationwide protests now make protesting in a supposedly democratic society a capital offense. Now they send out their compromised Obas, community leaders, and lawyers who should be protecting the rights of the citizens, to threaten to put down people like dogs just for daring to protest.

It’s so disappointing that I am starting to think maybe we should have just stayed in our caves and not joined the civilized world if this is the level of development we still are in Nigeria of 2024.

Of course, we must ALL condemn any violent protests, and we must all educate our angry youths on the dangers to all of us with a raging protest, but to ask for them to be shot on sight or threaten them with evil occultic and spiritual death is disgusting and has no place in any civilized nation.

My name is Ope Banwo, and as the ‘Mayor of Fadeyi,’ I will keep speaking my truth for the defenseless Nigerians who seem caught in the hands of the elites and a government that will not let them breathe. You did not give them food, or power, or jobs, or good roads while you are busy riding in N200 million cars and remodeling your government houses with billions and buying billion-naira airplanes to join the fleet of billion-naira airplanes you already have. Yet you also want to shoot them on sight if they dared to come out to protest the hardship in their lives.

How wicked can such a government be, especially when the same government and party rose to power under the wave of well orchestrated and executed national protests by APC leaders against what they had determined was an underperforming government of Jonathan Goodluck? Naija lives Matter… and we will not allow any govt to forget that!