The youths protesting for real change in Nigeria
The Buhari government seems not to get it or pretend that the ongoing protests across Nigeria is all about dismantling the notoriously dreaded Special Anti Robbery Squad, SARS. No, the protests go beyond that, it’s just the catalyst to demand accountability and good governance. In 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari resurrected from the political graveyard where he had consigned himself after losing the 2011 election. He promised change and Nigerians clamouring for change elected him to be president of Nigeria. Buhari has since betrayed the trust of the people by his inability to provide the needed leadership to herald the change that Nigerians have always yearned for.

Just like every other segment of the society, the youths have had just enough of the a structure in which nothing works. The notoriously killer squad SARS, became the launchpad for the youths across Nigeria to demand for genuine change which the politicians view as tool or rather sloganeering for winning elections. Since October 8, 2020 when the protests spilled onto the streets of Nigeria from the social media, politicians, including President Buhari, have not ceased to amuse the nation by pretending that the demonstrations are all about SARS. The nation’s amusement is further heightened watching the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives after a meeting with Mr Buhari over the weekend calling on the youths to halt the protests so that the government can address their demands. What a laugh. These characters are all amusing in indeed. Sirs, when did the Nigerian government start earning the trust of its people?

They are protesting about everything that is wrong with Nigeria
For starters, let’s begin at the National Assembly, that odious bastion of corruption, is one reason the system is failing. Nigeria’s law makers are the most expensive set of legislators in the world. The insane pay they allocated to themselves can’t be sustained by the nation. The youths have made this clear. They legislate nothing other than corruption. The judiciary, the so called hope of the common people, is enmeshed in corrupt practices. The judiciary has always been the instrument of oppression in the hands of Nigerian rulers. Remember the duo despots of Ibrahim Babangida and his co-traveller in the ruination of Nigeria, Sani Abacha, these two used the judiciary to oppress the people. The politicians have continued in that tradition since the advent of the Third Republic in 1999. The executive arm of government sums up the ineptness of Nigerian leaders. Without stretching the time frame to the military era, the four figures who have led the nation since 1999 are windows through which to view Nigeria’s fumbling and bungling leaders. From Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua, Goodluck Jonathan to Muhammadu Buhari, these quartet have demonstrated the deficits inherent in the Nigerian leadership.

It is clear that from the ongoing protests, the Nigerian people want good governance that ensures the lifting of the untold hardships that have been visited on them by successive governments. The demand is clear the dismantling of the old order and enthronement of structure which does not keep feeding the fat cats. A lean structure which does not encourage a bloated government. It is clear that the Nigerian people want a system that recognises dozens of ethnic nationalities which make up the nation. The idea of domination by any segment in the nation is no longer tenable. It is time the elite realised they cannot sustaining this skewed system – not with carrot nor stick anymore. The real landlords of Nigeria (the people) have finally woken up and their roar is resonating to the uttermost parts of the earth.