Will Soyinka, Adeboye, Bakare, protest or apologise? Asks Senior Journalist Ikeddy Isiguzo

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has shot himself so badly with his bold mis-steps on the planned protests. He cannot ask people not to protest. He should stop threatening them as he has been doing in the past few days. His approach is poor politics completely incompatible with the world-acclaimed political sagacity of the President.

Nigerians have been reminding the President that he led the protests against President Goodluck Jonathan 12 years ago. The essence of the protests that shut down Lagos and some parts of Nigeria was to get Jonathan out of office, get Muhammadu Buhari into office, all as the prelude to Tinubu’s already blighted presidency.

Professor Wole Soyinka was in that protest.

Let us assume that at 90 he is too tired to join the peaceful protests, he can issue a statement condemning Tinubu’s flagging performance. If that is too heavy, too soon after Tinubu eulogised him on his birthday, Prof can still do something.

Why not apologise to Nigerians for mis-leading them into following Tinubu’s scripts? Would that be too much too?

Your great scholarship, earlier sacrifices for Nigeria and Nigerians are daily diminished by your new twists and turns against the masses.

Where is Pa Enoch Adeboye, great leader of men and women whose messages provide direction to his millions of followers? He followed Tinubu, protested, preached about the hard times. Will he be at Lagos’ Freedom Park for a worthy remembrance party of how the exit of Jonathan has given us a better country? Is he unaware of the tough times? Does he expect that, “It is well” will be enough to manage the situation? We know you are human. We agree you can make mistakes. An apology from you can assuage angry Nigerians. If you let the President know that if a protest was a good idea in 2012, it is a better idea in 2024, you would have played your part.

The 12th anniversary of that protest should be celebrated peacefully. The event of 2012 was peaceful because government did not unleash unmitigated fury on the people. Why would a protest be banned?

Is Tunde Bakare against a peaceful protest? Can he tell us why? Can he say he has forgotten his roles at Freedom Square? Should he not tell us where he stands? We do not want to misinterpret his silence as support for Tinubu? How does he account for his involvement in the enthronement of Buhari and Tinubu?

The trio should speak up. The time is ticking. Not only has the President refused to acknowledge that there are major challenges before Nigerians, he believes he can continue postponing deploying solutions until the people forget their hardships. Each time he speaks, like Buhari, he gets people angrier through a consist inclination to under-rate the problems.

Tinubu’s media managers are worse than him by far. They shout down views that draw their attention to the fact that they mobilised Nigerians against Jonathan in 2012.

Evidences are in abundance. Since Tinubu is special and the law bows to his wishes, they think Nigerians have had a memory wipe.

More threats have been issued to Nigerians in the past few days than in the entire presidency of Tinubu. The strategy is simple but out-dated – threaten those who intend to protest.

Why is the President short of political sagacity, and economic measures, from his impressive management of the resources of the oil company he uses its name to tell us what a great wealth creator he has been most of his life?

The man who built Lagos through eight years and has had a hold on its chaotic economy does not know what to do with higher responsibiities of his office. Is he at the end of his strategies? Did he even have any?

His panic over a peaceful protest that has been announced long ago is embarrassing. He had enough time to start addressing issues the protesters raised. He would not.

Tinubu blames everybody as if his presidency is a joint responsibility of all Nigerians. He may not be clueless but he has no clues about what to do. Most times he appears unwilling to do anything.

A sudden discovery that filling the public space with noises that his second term is guaranteed would not be the bridge to cross to 2027, increases his panic. He has no answers to his own worries. How would he have time to worry about others?

The resort to fractitionalising the country over his failures are new challenges from mis-managing the opportunities genuine dialogues provide. Tinubu, his past failed promises aside, does not feel our pains. He is actually incapable of feeling our pains having promoted his comforts well above our issues.

Hunger, anger, insecurity, have spread across the country though the impacts are heavier on some parts. Anybody willing to allow an ethnicisation of the situation is free to do so. Tinubu has no answers to the problems. Are people in Lagos excluded from these issues?

Almost all arms of the security agencies are threatening Nigerians. The right to protest is in abeyance. The President has not spoken against these threats by his security officials.

The security agencies have the tacit approval of the President to stop the protests any which way they deem necessary.

Others are discouraging the protesters with emphases on the futility of the protest. We are inaundated with consequences of protests.

Even if the protesters want to be peaceful, the government does not want a protest.

Governors gathered to celebrate their latest largesse in refunds from the Federal Government are against protests. Their chairman, Hope Uzodinma, renewed the state of hopelessness with this explanation.

“This is so that we can manage the challenge of insecurity, the challenge of national minimum wage, the challenge of food security and then the struggle to come out of the current economic recession.

“We are using this opportunity to also advise our young boys and girls to desist from being instigated into causing crisis or chaos in the country.

“Already, Nigerians have suffered a lot; the global economic recession, the insecurity in Nigeria, the political tension occasioned by instigations and campaign of calumny by opposition parties, the social media attacks on various policies of government.

“We want to advise for the interest of the country and as a show of patriotism, our citizens must take ownership of this country because we have no other country we can call our own outside Nigeria,” Governor Uzodinma rambled.

President Tinubu should provide security for Nigerians to protest peacefully unless he can tell us why he led protests in 2012 for reduction of the price of fuel, the only issue in contest then.

Finally…

ALHAJI Aliko Dangote cannot be the dim businessman we are being made to believe he is because of problems of crude oil supplies to his refinery. How can someone invest over $20 billion to set up a plant without certainties on raw materials? Does it make sense? The explanations are more befuddling. Dangote should manage his refinery or sell it. I also hope Nigeria does not borrow money to buy Dangote’s problem.

I HEARD that Abia State will not protest. The people are over-fed on good governance and are satisfied, the governor’s media aide, Kazie Uko, said.

•Isiguzo is a major commentator on minor issues