African Winter? Youth Uprisings in Nigeria And Africa

By Kofo Obasanjo-Blackshire

A social media post replacing tomatoes with more affordable watermelon seeds went viral amidst double digit inflation that is spiralling out of control in Nigeria.  In a nation with some of the most arable land on earth, people are going hungry. The #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria and #EndHarship protests were a reflection of the desperation of people determined to have their hardships addressed and their pain eased.

Nigeria’s over 200 million citizens are a nation of entrepreneurs, innovators who are no strangers to managing tough circumstances, without the services states usually provide. Nigerians epitomise the expression ‘turning lemons into lemonade.’  They generate their own electricity, source their own water, find creative (not always wholesome) ways to earn money and even negotiate with kidnappers when family members are abducted.  Right now though, that resourcefulness is being strained to its limits. As previously reported, egregious policy decisions of fuel subsidy removal and devaluation of the Naira advocated by the IMF and World Bank have created untold suffering and made life unbearable for millions of Nigerians.  Reports of the Nigerian president contemplating the purchase of new presidential jets while many Nigerians languish in hunger, unemployment, insecurity, hardship and myriad other deprivations feel like a slap in the face and salt in the wound.

Inspired by the Kenyan protests that have shaken President Ruto’s presidency and captured global attention, protest organisers in Nigeria have used social media platforms to organise anti-government and anti-corruption protests.

Predictably, the response from President Tinubu, accused of stealing last year’s Nigerian elections, has been terribly out of touch and unduly heavy-handed, typified by overzealous reactions from security forces, with reports of teargas being deployed to disperse peaceful protesters. The Nigerian police was quick to refute reports by Amnesty International of 13 people killed in the first day of the protests.

President Tinubu, in a televised address on Sunday the 4th of August, three days after the protests began, called for an end to the protests, saying that the rallies have turned violent and blaming “a few with a political agenda” These classic disingenuous disinformation tactics, designed to distract by falsely accusing nameless, faceless, unidentified political opponents are the refuge of the wretched and incompetent.  Their purpose is to shift focus from the real issues plaguing the nation.

The #EndHarship protests are borne out of acute, protracted and persistent suffering- breastfeeding mothers unable to nurse their babies, families struggling to eat, double digit inflation translating into exorbitant prices for staple foods, farmers forced off their lands by bandits.  Hunger, insecurity, unemployment and desperation have converged into a pitiful stranglehold that has forced people on to the streets to demand relief!

Simply telling protesters to go away, while they remain hungry, insecure and unemployed is not the answer. Neither is misrepresenting or downplaying it as politically motivated dissent. Nigerians witness national resources being plundered and wasted by greedy and selfish politicians, while the gap between rich and poor; the political elite and the electorate grows wider than ever.

Nigerians have had enough! Some trade union leaders have warned that ‘A situation where most Nigerian families are forced to eat one miserable meal a day and eating from the dustbin beckons for serious intervention by the government’. The venal Nigerian Government has resorted to what it does best: capturing institutions, arms of government, unions, political parties and even parts of the media with slush fund. It has paid lip service to the people’s suffering without proper engagement or concrete action.

The youth in particular have powered these protests with their activism on social media. Africa, the world’s youngest continent, with a median age of 19 is replete with Gen Z (Born 1997–2010), a pragmatic generation of digital natives who mobilises themselves for a variety of causes and expect their leaders to deliver the promise of great hope.  Their distaste for rising inequality is creating a movement against the failure of Africa’s political class to meet their expectations and deliver a democratic dividend. Africa’s youth are disenfranchised, disempowered, unemployed, hungry and hopeless; they are frustrated and angry. We are witnessing the outpouring of their anger in protests from Kenya to Uganda to Nigeria.

In Uganda demonstrators were arrested from among groups of protesters who were marching and shouting anti-corruption slogans in different parts of the capital, Kampala on Tuesday, the 23rd of July.  The protest was organised on social media with hashtag #StopCorruption.  President Museveni, who has been in power for almost four decades, in his typically bombastic style had warned that protesters would be ‘playing with fire’.

Kenya’s government has appealed for the protests to stop, while an attempt by the police to ban demonstrations was overruled by the courts. Even after President Ruto granted the key demands of the protesters, including the scrapping of planned tax rises and the dismissal of almost the entire cabinet, the calls for his resignation remain as strident as ever. The demonstrators’ focus has shifted to the president’s legitimacy, corruption in his government, his capacity to keep his populist campaign promise and police brutality.

As for Nigeria, online protest calls, inspiration from events in Kenya, the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation and endless widespread pain has galvanised people on to the streets despite warnings and threat of military action against violence. Government attempts to enlist traditional and religious leaders to discourage the protesters from proceeding have failed; the protesters simply didn’t ‘buy it’.  Something has shifted; the old order seems to have been abandoned. Authorities must grasp the power of social media to influence cultures, shape opinion (for good or ill) and to marshal unstoppable movements. They fail to do so at their peril.

Care must be taken, however, where ethnic tensions simmer just below the surface, that disparate, diffuse and largely leaderless movements do not themselves become co-opted and corrupted by bad actors. Rallying around common grievances against government corruption, bad leadership, unemployment, failure to provide basic goods and honour the social contract must remain the focus. Infiltration by looters and criminals bent on vandalism, anarchy and destruction can turn an inalienable constitutional right to protest peacefully into something ugly, providing the government with an excuse for a violent crackdown.

That protesters in Daura bombarded former President Buhari’s house shows that no one is safe from the unleashing of youthful anger and frustration, which if unrestrained could morph into violence as they feel compelled to make their point and to enforce reform and change.

The government must provide sustainable structured solutions to the problems. Temporary ‘palliative’ measures are not sufficient. There have been reports of bags of food which were donated by the government as ‘palliatives’ to help the most vulnerable being repackaged and sold.  The government’s response must be measured, planned, organised and monitored to ensure that any corrective actions reach those for whom they are intended. Redressing the decisions that have caused distress and resulted in unrest must also be carefully, tactfully and humanely managed. The welfare of Nigerians must come first, not subordinated to IMF, World Bank or any other outside interests.

There is something about this wave of protests in Africa that is reminiscent of the Arab spring movement. In 2010 a young Tunisian vegetable seller set himself alight to protest against police harassment.  That gesture from Mohamed Bouazizi sparked protests against the cost of living and the country’s authoritarian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Tunisia would be the first of a wave of revolts across the Arab world as people rose up to protest against authoritarianism, corruption, and poverty.

Some wonder whether we are witnessing the beginning of Africa’s moment. Has the continent reached its nadir and could these be the convulsions that foreshadow birth pangs of an African Winter?