The days of reckoning are here

Could Tinubu be the man who will press the trigger of the gun that will spark a revolution in Nigeria that will spark the much awaited change in Nigeria.

The days of reckoning are here in Nigeria. It is very visible but it is certain some daydreamers won't see it. Those daydreamers who have been living on the collective partrimony of the nation, living at the expense of the toiling masses but it is staring us in our face. One of the rulers, Godswill Akpabio, the current President of the Senate who was installed courtesy of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the chief manipulator of Nigerian politics who said his ambition to be Nigeria's president is life-long, said at a ceremony of the Niger Delta Development Commission where he was once Chairman, "Let this government remain," that is, the government of Bola Tinubu, "and let us continue to eat while they protest." That unfortunate statement trended on social media and it is typical of the attitude of the leaders that have held Nigerians captive since 1960 when the nation got independence from its colonial oppressor, Britain. The oppressors are in the north, they are in the middlebelt and they are in the south. They have deliberately kept the masses very poor so that at every election with a little crumb thrown at them they fall in line. Even if people decide to vote their conscience, they still cannot make a change through the ballot boxes: the Independent Nation Electoral Commission, (INEC) controlled and used by any president or the governor in case of local government elections, is there to ensure victory upon victory for the oppressors.

I congratulated one of them recently over his party's landslide victory in a local government elections where their party had cleared all the seats in the state. I said it was because the election was not seriously contended by other parties. His reply was stunning. "Even if they had contested we would still have won. In this constituency for example, we had held back three centres that we knew the votes there are many and will make us win." They won without the consent of the electorates. The man didn't even want me to congratulate him. They know the game and they will continue to win. And we call what we do here democracy. We lie, Nigeria has never been democratic.

But the days of reckoning are upon us. Years back, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Nigeria's icon of politics who did not bend his principles even if meant losing Nigerian elections predicted that: "A day will come when Nigerian masses from the North and South, Christians, Muslims and animists will emerge as a force of progress and unity and kick against rigging, corruption and tyranny." Awolowo was not a prophet in religious meaning of that word even though he attended church and has credible claim to spirituality but any student of history could have seen what he saw. You don't suppress a people for too long. You don't blindfold them for too long. The poverty you generate, will unite them. The education you deny them but you give to your own children will open their eyes. They will get tired of the peanut you dish out to them in the name of religion and kick against your oppression.

Nasir El-Rufai, a former governor of Kaduna State who ruled that state for eight years doing whatever he liked, once noticed that the north which was known as the most submissive in Nigeria was beginning to resist authority. The North resisted in Boko haram that rejected western education as sin because of the wrong teaching it has been exposed to for decades and that has kept her postrate. The North resisted in banditry when herders who had been settled roaming the bush walking thousands of kilometers became restive. Having been toughened by wild animals that are their companions in the thick forest they learn to ask their leaders, there emirs, their local government officers, their governors and their presidents: where are the schools for our children? Where are hospitals for our wives and children and us their fathers. To all these the nation has not answered and consequently those we call bandits kidnap our children claiming ransom in millions to release them. When the ransom is not paid, the victims are killed. Sometimes the ransom is collected and the victims are still killed.

Emirs in the North and kings in the south and the Middlebelt are not spared. Some of them are captured and killed. Our military has not been able to arrest the situation. The bandits and terrorists continue to ravage our farms and in the wake created inflation in the country which sent prices of agricultural products beyond the roof. And food took a leave from the tables of many Nigerians. President Tinubu is the final element to fulfil the prediction of Awolowo. He campaigned for the 2023 presidency with all instruments both at his disposal and out of his disposal. He didn't mind to tell his cultic followers in Lagos that nobody will give them power a la carte, but they had to grab it and run away with it. Those thugs went all over Lagos executing the command of their boss, scared many electorates away, carted away ballot boxes and beat many electorates. On election day in Lagos the traditional rulers reached into their arsenal and threatened that their Oro deity will be out. Oro usually don't come out in the day, they are sons of darkness, sons of the night, even though they are more myth that reality, they are feared. So the Igbo who were the target of the Oro deity kept off the elections units. And Tinubu won the governor election for his lackey, Babajide Sanwoolu, after he lost the presidential election in Lagos State to Peter Obi of the Labour Party.

Eventually, Tinubu was declared winner of the presidential elections but Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi went to the Presidential Elections Petitions Tribunal (PEPT). Courts in Nigeria like virtually all institutions in the nation are places of magic. If you have money you are certainly going to buy justice. If you are poor you can forget justice. So Tinubu, a master of the game of corruption carried the day, he was pronounced winner in both the PEPT and the Supreme Court. He had onced again grabbed power and will soon run with it. Unknown to him and unknown to many Nigerians, Tinubu will be the last leg in the relay race of oppression in Nigeria. He got the baton and pronounced the end of oil subsidy which Nigerians had enjoyed for decades. He said later that he was seized with a courage but that is a lie, he had been advised by his advisers, men and women who are slaves of IMF oppression. His appointed CBN governor, Olayemi Cardoso in obvious cahoots with Tinubu declared the foreign exchange market deregulated. He used a language beyond the reach of the average suffering Nigeria. Yemi Cardoso, CBN governor said he was floating the naira. Not that the naira will float on River Niger which many thought of but that the naira will be at the mercy of the almighty dollar. Nigeria imports virtually everything, it exports little, save its crude oil which had been sold out to China in exchange for loans which were stolen by men and women that surrounded Buhari.

What was needed was not naira floating or subsidy removal but the recovery of all monies that Buhari and his ministers and other appointees had allegedly stolen and stashed abroad so that Tinubu can use the recovered loot to shore up the value of naira, some experts advised Tinubu. Still, Tinubu wanted himself seen in the eyes of history as an expert sent at this crucial point in Nigeria's history, a man that knows more than everyone else, one that all must listen to. Because he built Lagos, he claimed, everybody must listen to him whereas he did not build Lagos but as seen by seers he actually captured Lagos and was so smart by it that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the nation’s anti-corruption agency failed in its bid to prosecute him for alleged corrupt practices. The first anti-corruption czar is now Tinubu's National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, which shows Tinubu knows his game.

Could Tinubu be the man who will press the trigger of the gun that will spark a revolution in Nigeria that will spark the much awaited change in Nigeria, that will unite the nation, that will take religion off the central consideration it has now. Will Tinubu be the man that will make a mistake that will set the North free from years of cheating and oppression by its leaders. A Muslim friend of this writer on Facebook when I told him that I had been told that the Ulamas who preached that it is unislamic to protest are now preaching that protest is Islamic because Tinubu from another tribe is in saddle, told me: "Never at any time than now have the youth of the North refused the preaching of the Ulamas." So what opened the eyes of the North? It was the radicals of the south that organized the protest via their social media handles but it was the youth of the North that started the protest. They didn't wait for the official date of the South and they had no clear leaders. They with the counterparts in the south asked the president to accede to fifteen demands. Within one week the protest had turned so violent in the North, twenty one persons had been killed. Tinubu media handlers told the nation the president will be addressing the nation. But the address was more a slap on the face, a rehash of Tinubu’s typical hubris. He spoke but what he did not say was more apparent. Nigerians could go to hell, he was their president and nothing was going to change. Protests should end only because he had addressed the nation and the security should be more ferocious, perhaps kill many more people. But rather than the protests halting, it aggravated, again the North leading. What will Tinubu do next is easily predictable? Like the biblical Pharaoh, Nigeria's Pharaoh will not allow the nation to go until he is afflicted ten times. Many expect this to be the beginning of a new Nigeria, a Nigeria where the people will be truly sovereign. But Moses may not see the land of promise. That is the Bible and it may just be what will happen.

Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos