RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Accomplices Of The Lekky Toll Gate Massacre

[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

IBK & CAO:

I think this whole issue goes beyond simply for or against protests particularly when youths are involved. It was on this forum that I quoted a seminar of Norbert Okoye (UI psychologist) where he asserted that the youths see life through ' rose tinted glasses'  This is still largely true.  The youths are easily impressionable precisely because they lack the 'reality checks' afforded by life's good old experience.  This is why youths are enlisted in armed forces in their late teens rather than their late twenties: at that age fear of death is not palpable.

Political columnists can write all sorts of alluring scenarios which become achievable when people lay their lives on the line ( that is except themselves, or how else can you explain a columnist secure with his children in the United States wishing his 'prophecy' of youth uprising coming true in Nigeria, knowing fully well there may be a security crack down in which forces are ordered to shoot to kill if possible to restore law and order?)  Yes, IBK I accept your position that people need to take practical steps to demand changes for the better in the way they are governed but the modalities are not as simple as that.  Spontaneous uprisings mean 'knee- jerk' response by government to restore order.

Yes, the youths most likely have been coached in advance that so long as they stuck to peaceful protests then all would be well ( which begs the questio by columnists' how spontaneous is spontaneous if it is peaceful protests across the country?')  We know how intractable youths generally are by nature. ( I  went to give a police witness statement only yesterday how a peaceful gathering of youths at a gas station degenerated to a bedlam near homicide by the group.)

I have myself been part if THREE student youth protests in three consecutive years: as an ' O' Level high school student, as 'A' Level student at the polytechnic and as a university undergraduate.  I know how fluid and dicey situations could be and indeed unfolded.

In the first occasion, easily the best student among us who in the two previous years including the year of the riots ' carted away' 13 of the 15 prizes available at valedictory ( leaving the rest of us over 150 students to struggle for the two remaining prizes) this non  assuming student was roped in among the ring leaders and rusticated and could not come back for our final year and final year exams.  Luckily like yours truly he tried his hands on GCE external in his penultimate year but unlike yours truly cleared all subjects taken in his usual grand style and that was why on gaining admission for undergraduate studies I found him there too to top his elec tronics and electrical engineering class mates with a FIRST CLASS.  Other rusticated class mates weren't that lucky.

This was why my father said to me on going for my 'A' Levels i'f there are protests and demonstrations dont stay at the front and dont bring up the rear': both are equally dangerous. True to his premonition I had the ill luck there was one against Obasanjo's military policies. At the high school it was against the newly appointed princioal's policies.  We were tear gassed on both occasion.  We escaped to nearby houses and vegetation outside the secondary school precincts in the first occasion at the polytechnic we retreated through the northern gates connecting with the university of Ibadan where we nestled in the grass surrounding the lecturers quarters.  By 1am we were roused by a cry the ' godogodo' were on our heels inside UI everyone scrambled and scampered in the process several used by chest as raft to safety and my rib cage almost collapsed before I could struggle tiomy feet.

As an undergraduate I was again part of  Ali Mungo against Obasanjo.  Anti riot police were sent in.  Some of them followed us to the knoll on the left approach from the gates to the campus.  One of them became detached from the main group and one of them was about to be cornered and captured by some students when I heard the unmistakable sound of live rounds being fired by the security personnel under threat.

I say all these to underline how youth protests can be in part always potentially dangerous CAO maintained and as a response to the columnist charge that compromised organised labour betrayed an earlier youth uprising.  Yes organised Labour is part of governance and as the Russian Revolution teaches us the Boksheviks on seizing power had to negotiate with other national stake holders.  That is not betrayal, it is facing reality and not being inexorably doctrinnaire.  Organised labour is mature and does not view life through'rose tinted glasses.'

The safest way to ensure change in a democracy is that contained in the contributions of one Stevek posted by Toyin Adepoju stressing that the youths be re-organised to put their demands into a manifesto of a party they want to deliver their mandate and VOTE that party in.

OAA

Mr. President you took an oath to rule according to the Constitution.

Where are the schools to promote the teaching of the country's lingua francas?

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: "Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM" <chidi...@gmail.com>

Date: 21/10/2020 10:32 (GMT+00:00)

To: USA African Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Accomplices Of The Lekky Toll Gate Massacre

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All of you hypocrites are now typing from your comfort zones with your own children sleeping soundly beside you,  while the bullet riddled bodies of other people's children you misled are all over Lekki toll gate!  

You are accomplices in this crime against God and humanity.  You are not different from the blood suckers who ordered the murder of those youth. 

Did you honestly not see this coming?  You did! You advised your own children and urged other people's children to go and stop bullets with their bodies. 

You are an accomplice in in this. You, who misled those murdered youth and those who murdered them will surely face the coming wrath of God,  the greatest impartial judge.

-Chidi Anthony Opara(CAO).

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[Ibukunolu A Babajide]

My dear brother,

I feel you. Your stories here are very similar to mine too!  I agree totally with you. 

My only practical addition is that no matter how rich our elderly experiences may be, the youths when they are youths will always do what we also did and out themselves too in harm's way. 

They will wear their rose tinted glasses. I remember the mortal fear I saw in my mum's eyes when as an undergraduate I brought home my few friends for a quick meal before we disappeared again to mobilize. 

I feel the same for these my children who are now at the coal face.  Maybe, our only insurance against all these cycles of despair is to set up a political party for the youths and also engage actively in politics to stop the rot that attracts the youths to the barricades. 

May God save our children.  My dear brother, yours is as always deeply appreciated and an insightful intervention.

Cheers. 

IBK

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[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

IBK.

The way the New Labour Party solved the problem of exclusion in the UK and achieved a silent revolution that I thought I would never see in my own lifetime recommends itself to our children.

Rather than mounting series of one thousand, million man marches in front of Whitehall the American way, party stalwarts knuckled down listened carefully to the grievances of minorities saw all the abuses of the Old Conservatives similar to what majority of Nigerian politicians are about today formed small groups including minorities knocked on doors explaining how New Labour was different from the old Labour, showing how New Labour will not be in power to run rich folks down, ( of course bank rolled by Fabians to boot and complemented by plans for new funds from rich Arab coubtry's sovereign wealth funds.)  

 The result was New Labour landslide victory which sent the old Thatcherite Conservatives into near oblivion only gradually resuscitated by Theresa May the Great's Compassionate Conservatism now playing catch up on New Labour strategy.

So what the background organisers of the expansion of #ENDSARS  campaign must do is acknowledge it is only phase I which has achieved its purpose of highlight urgent issues of which youth neglect is only a part and organise an orderly retreat and withdrawal of the youths from the streets and strategize on phase II.

Phase II is where the youths will practically negate the statement credited to Buhari that they are lazy.  They will need to be organised to seek that party prepared to put their demands on their manifesto for the next election and help that party campaign the length and breadth of the country knocking on doors starting from now till next election that the youths interests comprise the enlightened self interests of the whole country and demonstrate this verity in their campaigns.  It means their handlers need to be imaginative and hard working

too.

OAA

Mr. President you took an oath to rule according to the Constitution.

Where are the schools to promote the teaching of the country's lingua francas?

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Ibukunolu A Babajide <ibk...@gmail.com>

Date: 21/10/2020 23:41 (GMT+00:00)

To: USAAfricaDialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Accomplices Of The Lekky Toll Gate Massacre

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My dear brother,

I feel you. Your stories here are very similar to mine too!  I agree totally with you. 

My only practical addition is that no matter how rich our elderly experiences may be, the youths when they are youths will always do what we also did and out themselves too in harm's way. 

They will wear their rose tinted glasses. I remember the mortal fear I saw in my mum's eyes when as an undergraduate I brought home my few friends for a quick meal before we disappeared again to mobilize. 

I feel the same for these my children who are now at the coal face.  Maybe, our only insurance against all these cycles of despair is to set up a political party for the youths and also engage actively in politics to stop the rot that attracts the youths to the barricades. 

May God save our children.  My dear brother, yours is as always deeply appreciated and an insightful intervention.

Cheers. 

IBK

On Wed, 21 Oct 2020, 5:40 pm OLAYINKA AGBETUYI, <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

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[Ibukunolu A Babajide]

OAA,

One question; who are their handlers?  Me say. Nobody. 

Observation one - UK had a long imperial time and a gradual transfer of power and world wars 1 and  2. 

Observation 2 - UK has two world wars and long peaceful tranfers power. 

We do not have these underlying progress before going down this road. 

Cheers. 

IBK 

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[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

My great brother:

If a group of people across a landscape as huge as Nigeria with variegated cultures decide on a coordinated mass action with relatively similar style and placing similar demands on government then there must have been  coordinators of timing and style whether or not you and I know them.

The secret of the 'progress' and smooth transfer of power in the UK was none other than the Monarchy as the unifying force.  The Yoruba share that viewpoint hence the adage ' Aìfàgbà fęnìkan kò jáýé ó gún' (relentless contestation of leadership creates the framework for an unstable polity.)  This was why the Yorùbá, like the English developed the model of Constitutional Monarchy in their long chequered history.

Rather than implement a model that restages a veritable battle Royale among contestants every time there is a vacancy ( such as the American Presidential System in which in the penultimate contest Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump, ageing parents, reduced each other to kindergarten tantrums before prime time global  television and before their own very children, before whom the quest for political power had regressed them to inferior status, so their children became the parents of the two parents- children in unedifying political fisticuffs) - rather than recreate this battle Royale of an earlier stage of the evolution of the monarchical system,  a seasoned class of kingmakers and courtiers grooms potential candidates from birth on societal values desired of them to govern from which they are not allowed to depart.

  It is important that monarchs dont make the policies of their rule but others continue to advice them on what policies to pursue for the progress of the realm and these policies differ from epoch to epoch.

We had a peaceful transfer of power from Jonathan to Buhari and we will have a peaceful transfer from Buhari to a successor if positivity of thinking rules our minds.  Because things went wrong in the past dies not mean things will forever go wrong.  We must remember the English once beheaded their own king to pave the way for Cromwelluan rule yet they refused to follow the examples of the French and the Russians who in revolutionary fervour guillotined and shot their monarchs because they learned enduring lessons from the Cromwellian debacle.

The British once had a centralised prime ministerial system which assumed the primus inter pares status, but because the system insidiously put on a presidential garb through which the English by demographic ploy lorded it over the other three members of the tetrachy (Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) politically the United Kingdom has now become a de-facto tetrachy unified by a monarchy   in the fin de siecle of the 20th century with devolution of powers to 4 separate assemblies and three other First Ministers appointed who are no longer under the sway of the Westminster Prime Minister.

This is the way to go for Nigeria in a system I have called PresMinster system of government.  This would entail a president from each of the 6 geo- political zones which will not be subject to any central authority except their own joint orwsidential council each of whuch will rule each zone as primus inter pares.

It is in this sense that (Prof) Jega's call for a national conference becomes resonant. If we all accept like the British that the break up of the country is off the cards there is no reason why the Nigerian nation cannot be redesigned.  The fractious issue of policing can then come in view with possible adoption of regional policing without a centralised command with the military being the only centralised command.

The Yoruba have an adage ' Eni ti o máa dáşo fún ni torùn ę làn wò' ( He who must give us a tailor made suit, we check out how his clothes suit him.)  If the British can tinker with their inherited political system to make it fit for purpose why cant Nigerians?

In case as you wager, there were no hidden masterminds of the # ENDSARS protests its time some experienced hands step in and redirect the energies to a purposeful  fruitful political birth.

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[Ibukunolu A Babajide]

My brother,

I am almost swayed. You lucid and trenchant position is powerful. On protest planning and timing, I agree there are planners but my take is, what is the degree of command and control. This is too low to count as once the initial objective of amassing people on the streets is achieved, like a space ship that has taken and sent its last photographs to earth, it no longer responds to commands from base. 

Your innovative pres-minister idea is worthy but it will jostle with other ideas on the table. My fear is that the current crop of rapacious politicians will not make such a sane constitutionalism possible. 

No experienced adult can gain access to the expired command and control of this current protests as it is designed to fail. 

Cheers. 

IBK 

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[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

How van we say the youth protests are designed to fail?  I dont understand.

The English did not want a tetrarchy if they could get away with lording it over the other national minorities in the union but it was a last ditch attempt to prevent the union from unraveling after the equivalent of other options on the table for Nigeria had been debated like PR ( proportional reprezentation) and the English majority wont budge insisting on simple majority rule knowing with a bit of tribalism as it happened since Thatcherism they could always hold on perpetually to power at the centre.  On the other hand the national minorities did not want to be reduced to second class citizens in their own country.

There is a similar scenario in Nigeria now when some northern power brokers have started suggesting there is no guarantee the post- Buhari political dispensation will pass to the South so all the Obi lining up behind Atiku and Osinbajo being faithful to his Principal counts for nothing.  Now that the North is back to being secure at the hustings, its back to the 1983 winner takes all from the charade of  primaries onwards.  This was why I cited Trump versus Clinton battle Royale.  It is the most bestial Darwinist democratic means of choosing leaders.

In Nigeria, once the system produces yet another northerner, southerners will be up in arms with their own version of 'the dog and the baboon being soaked in blood.'  It is not for nothing that most of the criticism of this administration is coming from the South.   The Nigerian political and intellectual elite can do better than this.

We could decide to understand our differences and refuse to paper them over as they continue to threaten to implode in our faces for the past sixty years of two steps forward and four steps backwards.  We could choose to understand our genuine differences and design a political system that reflects those.

The geo-political fabric of Nigeria will not change substantially for the next 50 years.  The intelligentsia must work around this reality in order to achieve real progress.

OAA

Mr President you took an oath to rule according to the Constitution.

Where are the schools to promote the teaching of the country's lingua francas?

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Ibukunolu A Babajide <ibk...@gmail.com>

Date: 23/10/2020 13:35 (GMT+00:00)

To: USAAfricaDialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Accomplices Of The Lekky Toll Gate Massacre

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My brother,

I am almost swayed. You lucid and trenchant position is powerful. On protest planning and timing, I agree there are planners but my take is, what is the degree of command and control. This is too low to count as once the initial objective of amassing people on the streets is achieved, like a space ship that has taken and sent its last photographs to earth, it no longer responds to commands from base. 

Your innovative pres-minister idea is worthy but it will jostle with other ideas on the table. My fear is that the current crop of rapacious politicians will not make such a sane constitutionalism possible. 

No experienced adult can gain access to the expired command and control of this current protests as it is designed to fail. 

Cheers. 

IBK 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DB6PR04MB29829AAE208364557CD26B2EA61D0%40DB6PR04MB2982.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com.

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