THE woodwork must be mightily relieved, like a man freed of constipation cramps. All sorts of people and groups crawled out of the woodwork during the fuel price increase crisis. The Organisation of Unemployed Nigerians, which was unknown before the fuel price increase, supported the sharp increase in the price of petrol, a very strange thing for a group of educated but unemployed young men to do. Are they fakirs comfortably sitting on the nails of hardship or fakes? Or has fortune smiled on them with the tremendous help of President Goodluck Jonathan?

A forest of advertorials tried to obscure Nigerians’ view during the strike. Some people were probably under the deluded impression that Nigerians are babes in the wood, that they are like the two orphan children in the story who are tricked by their uncle, who is after their money, and die in a forest where they have been abandoned. It seems some people do not even have to say open sesame before having access to inexhaustible funds.

It was claimed that six oil companies manipulated the trade unions into going on strike to protest against the sudden doubling of petrol price. The oil companies were said to have withdrawn N1 billion, causing something of a run on the banks, to persuade union leaders to overthrow the government and strengthen the regime of ‘fuel subsidy’. A source reportedly told some newspapers that the managing directors of the six oil companies were about to be arrested for their treasonous plot against the Jonathan administration.

The story was published on January 5, four days before the strike and rallies, but no oil company managing director was taken in for questioning before or after the strike. The Nigeria Labour Congress dismissed the story as amateurish disinformation.

Some of the rallies were slickly organised, a Woodstock of music and dance. There were also speeches and they were not music to President Jonathan’s ears. But the protests lacked sophisticated subtlety in some parts of the country. There was ugly violence. The police shot dead no fewer than 10 protesters and the victim in Lagos was shot and killed by a senior police officer, a cold-blooded murder according to witnesses.

Some protesters burnt houses and vehicles in Kano and Minna. President Jonathan said this was politically motivated and he may have been right, at least in the case of Minna. Buildings owned by two or three top members of the Peoples Democratic Party in the town were set on fire. But the president’s allegation that the rioters were put up to it by some unhappy leaders of the political opposition was embarrassingly vague, a beer bubble of insubstantiality.

A president who wants to be taken seriously, especially a president who now wants to be seen as a man of steel—he declared a state of emergency in some areas of four states, ordered a hefty increase in the price of petrol and deployed troops in Lagos—should not make hasty allegations he may not be able to substantiate. And thinking commanders-in chief know that fighting a war on many fronts is a recipe for humiliating disaster.  

Motorists were terrorised and robbed in some states during the strike. Some people were robbed in broad daylight in their homes and there were reports of women being raped. This was blamed on miscreants, many of them homeless young people. Others live in overcrowded, poorly ventilated rooms in inner cities.They have no skills and do not live by their wits. They confront and do not creep up on their victims.

There is a worrying explosion in the population of inner city thugs. A Malthusian nightmare darkens the horizon in inner cities and some people are threatened with starvation. Inner city thugs may soon move in on swanky suburbs. But most poor people eke out an honest living.

Street gangs regularly join battle in Lagos and in some other places. They attack innocent people, smash cars and loot shops. A soldier callously shot a young man, who was not a weapon-wielding gang member, during a recent gang fight in Lagos. The gang members, whose war is over lucrative turf, are not unknown to the police.

It is possible that President Jonathan feared the rioters more than he feared those who made speeches at the rallies. The rioters set fires and a huge blaze of disorder has been known to consume governments.

Professor Jean Herskovits says poverty is responsible for Boko Haram’s slaughter of Christian worshippers in Nigeria. But there are no reports of other poor people blowing up churches or destroying mosques in Nigeria. An assault rifle costs thousands of naira, but dirt poor Boko Haram has many of them and has used the rifles to kill hundreds of people.

Professor Herskovits’ article in The New York Times was published by some Nigerian newspapers and later published as an advertorial. Who paid for the advertorial and why?

The professor, who teaches history at a state university in the United States, claims to have written about Nigeria since 1970. An ‘expert’ like Professor Herskovits wrote ignorantly about a pre-colonial empire in southern Nigeria in an encyclopedia published by Columbia University.

Professor Herskovits writes that Boko Haram is a mere bugaboo, that the killings are actually being done by southerners. Her proof is that the State Security Service allegedly said that the South had three out of the four ‘syndicates’ that sent threatening text messages to some prominent Nigerians. Surely Professor Herskovits knows the difference between crank text messages and the threats issued by Boko Haram which are almost always spoken?

Why did Boko Haram claim responsibility for the suicide bombing of the United Nations building in Abuja and the Catholic Church in Madalla, among many others, if a southern Christian group actually perpetrated the outrage?

Professor Herskovitts also cites the example of a man in Yenagoa who tried to burn a church while dressed as a northerner. But the man was actually a member of the church and he was reportedly unhappy with certain actions of the pastor with regard to the member’s personal needs. Boko Haram kills worshippers, but the church the man was allegedly trying to burn in Yenagoa was empty.

Kabir Sokoto is said to be a ranking Boko Haram member. He was taken into custody by the police on the strong suspicion that he organised the Madalla massacre. But a man believed to have committed a horrendous crime was soon free. The police claimed Sokoto was sprung by some people while being taken to his house, which was to be searched.

Abdulsalam Othman also ‘escaped’ from police custody. A Chief Superintendent of Police, he was one of the police officers arrested for the murder of the Apo Six in 2005. Othman reportedly told his guards that he was going to pray and has not been seen ever since.

The young man who accused Admiral Augustus Aikhomu, at the time the second most powerful man in Nigeria, of corruption said he could get away with anything because of where he came from. He is a northerner.
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                Your view
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Some of the protesters are dregs of the society who know next to nothing about what the oil subsidy removal is all about. They are hoodlums and opportunists trying to cash in on the strike to perpetrate heinous crimes. But they are not to blame but the insensitive leaders we are unlucky to have.
Dayo Mustafa, Ifetedo, Osun State
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That it was against the revolution to enrich oneself did not occur to Nigerian crude protesters. The misbehaviour of those you wrote about might not be witnessed in decent and civilised societies such as the polytechnic and university campuses. But whether educated, uneducated or indecent protesters, who caused that? President Goodluck Jonathan‘s January 1 bombshell, his defiance on irreversibility from N140 aggravated the protest to violence. GEJ should be blamed.
Lanre Oseni, Lagos
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A dog that wants to get lost will not hear the whistle of the hunter. Here is a man who we all voted for as if we wanted to give money to a beggar only to get there and lord it over us. The cabal appears to have infected the president and the virtues of truth, honesty, love and kindness are now lacking. We will be waiting for them when they return to lick the boots of voters.
Overseer E. A. Rotimi, TAC Olorunda-Ketu, Lagos, 08033796044
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The mayhem and insecurity unleashed could have been avoided if the PDP federal government was sensitive to masses’ plight over the needless fuel palaver. But the government resorted to cheap blackmail, duress and provocation to abridge people’s right to resist bad governance. Nigerians shall not capitulate to IMF/World Bank’s harsh and dubious terms to impugn and subvert our sovereignty and impoverish the masses despite huge natural and human resources. The nation once submitted to SAP and was brought to this sorry pass. How long will the nation be ruled by threats and insincere compromise to further increase people’s woes?
Ayodele Fagbohun, Akure, Ondo State

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