THEY WERE NO LONGER AT EASE PART 1.

THE BACKGROUND TO THE ENDSARS PROTEST.

“what kind of democracy can exist side by side with so much corruption and ignorance?” ― Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease

For weeks, the voice of a young generation who had writhed silently in agony and frustration reverberated throughout the streets and corners of Nigeria. They chanted and screamed in anger mixed with frustration in the hope that the world would hear and feel their pains. This abandoned generation of young people who had been so focused on minding their businesses and tending to the very little patches of grasses they could gather on their own were being attacked and suffocated by government officials, government policies and security agents.

Young Nigerians were intelligently blazing trails and creating new career paths that were gradually making the traditional jobs the older generation knew and understand lose relevance. Young Nigerians were forcing economic and technological advancements at a pace the government lacked the intelligence to understand and keep up with. And so, instead of bringing these young people into the fold and harnessing their intelligence for the good of all, the older generation who had made a career by planting themselves in government and churning out mediocre policies became antagonistic towards the young. They began to attack these young people and painting them unduly ‘criminals’.

Young people all over the country were systematically disappearing, kidnapped and robbed by government and security agents. These young Nigerians haven’t been given enough reasons to grow up trusting the ideal that they could run to the courts to get justice; besides, ex-parte orders were being used to remove and replace heads of arms of government like the Chief Justice of Nigeria via questionable procedures.

For years individuals and commentators joked about a ‘Nigerian curse’. To these individuals, Nigeria would always remain static as a result of the resilience and adaptability of ordinary Nigerians to pain and uncomfortable situations.

These generation of Nigerians were no longer at ease. They no longer felt the need to keep it within. The situation was becoming dire and the pains were becoming unbearable. So, they thought to themselves that it was time to speak up. They thought that maybe if the world knew and felt their pains, and atrocities were no longer given power by being shrouded in the shadow of secrecy, may be things would become a little bit different. And so, protests started sprouting up and spreading organically without being forced.

These young Nigerians were no longer at ease because the older generation tasked with safeguarding the future of the younger generation were systematically looting and suffocating the young. The older generation grew up in a Nigeria that gave them everything they needed; and so there was no logical explanation for these same people to deprive their offspring of the privilege they had themselves enjoyed.