Buhari Has Spoken! What Next? !! By Akindele AbdulQayyum Olalekan
Buhari Has Spoken! What Next? !! By Akindele AbdulQayyum Olalekan .
BUHARI HAS SPOKEN! WHAT NEXT?
Porously and infuriatingly waiting for Mr. President to address the nation for nearly 48 hours after military men allegedly opened fire on peaceful protesters holding the Nation’s flag while chanting the National anthem. Many lives were reportedly to have gone to land of no return lost with scores sustaining various degrees of injuries. It is no doubt, the Governor of Lagos state goofed having previously announced that the slated curfew would begin by 4pm before ultimately adjusted till 9pm. Were the security fully and well informed about the changes in timing of the curfew? Who ordered light out at the scene? Though the Governor had said CCTV cameras removed did not affect the footage of the occurrence of this #BlackTuesday, can Nigerians see the footage Mr. Governor? Why has the Nigerian Army clanger? The Army previously said the hooded soldier advising his colleagues was fake. It later said the soldier has been arrested! It should be on record that the Army also denied the presence of its boys at the scene of the massacre. Thanks to Mr. Sanwo Olu who rebutted the Army. However, the striking question is, who ordered the hit? Note that Mr. Sanwo Olu said “Lekki shooting carried out by forces beyond my control”. Who are those forces beyond his control?
Exactly two weeks ago, protests and demonstrations evoked across almost every major cities in the country. The protest witness days of peaceful demonstration but was later hijacked by hoodlums, miscreants and thugs. At that time, the president remained hushed. Need I remind you that the death of Jimoh Isiaka at Ogbomosho, Oyo state in a very coordinated and peaceful protest did not meet the teeming protesting youths in good faith? Albeit, that was the most peaceful protest the nation ever witnessed. Subsequently, the protest began to take various kinds of magnitudes. Had the president addressed the apoplectic and fuming crowd of protesters then, we would never be here. All he did was replace the SARS with SWAT. Emmanuel Macron of France visited the family of the young slain teacher in France recently within 24hours of the incident. What stopped our president or at least say the vice president from physically grieving with the family of Jimoh Isiaka? That gesture probably might reassure Nigerians of the presidency’s humanity and sensitivity to the ongoing uproar.
On Thursday, October 22, 2020 at exactly 7pm, the president addressed the nation! Had he really addressed what needed to be addressed? Mr. President commiserated with the families of the police officers lost to the violence erupted out of the protest deliberately chose to evade the lives of our courageous soldiers of good governance gunned down at different part of the country, most importantly Lekki Toll Plaza, Lagos. It should be on record that having pontificated my opinion without any equivocality on the fiendishness and truculence of officers of the SARS, the families of the slain officers need to be truly consoled and compensated. On this this note, I conclude that the killers of the officers are no different from the SARS we all so much abhorred without any protraction. I was (I think I still am) utterly perplexed at the way in which the hoodlums showed their disparaged and vilipend disregards to lives. Surprisingly, my acclaimed “most rectitude and upright” president shunned the demands of the protests bordering on good governance, justice, total reformation of the police, good welfarism for the police etc. Nigerians, where do we go from here?
The salient message from the president speech: the youth should hustle for the N-POWER that pays just #30,000 monthly or venture into agriculture. The international community got a stern warning. Get all the fact before you talk or keep shut. On the protest, Mr. President declared that nobody should protest again regarding police. Everybody knows that military men take order only from the Commander in Chief through their Chief of Army staff. If anyone still does not know who gave the order to lethally attack protesters at Lekki, read my penultimate sentence again.
As Sen. Shehu Sani posited “you ask for speech, you got the speech and now you are speechless”. Nigerians are speechless having listened and read what our president said to us after almost every major cities in the country went on fire. Nobody expected the president to be so meticulous in showing no respect to the lives of ordinary Nigeria. I read the president’s speech three times trying to convince myself that the president wisely commiserated with the families whose children were lost to the protest but then, I was disappointed.
Where do we go now? Everyone should go back to their activities and act like nothing happened. Let me use few quotes from the many left for our consumption by Martin Luther King jr.; “our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter”, “in the end, we remember not the words of our enemy but the silence of our friends” and “love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend”. To every politicians out there, remember “we must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools”. My fellow youths, we are still very much formidable as a force but let us use power correctly and rightly. What next after Buhari’s speech?
By; Akindele AbdulQayyum Olalekan,
Ibadan, Nigeria,
08066096937 ,
akinscoat@gmail.com .
