Nigeria Now and the Art of Protest

As Nigerians face economic and social challenges, it is important that they express their grievances through protests. However, certain groups have resorted to a different form of ‘protest’, which is used to water down the legitimate concerns of the people.

Written by Favour Olajide

Apr 21, 2024

Nigeria Protest #EndSars Protest. Photo Credit: Jerry Jallo for Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung / FLICKR. Collage by THE REPUBLIC.

It is a mockery of the concerns of the masses when supporters of Nigeria’s ruling party, the All Progressives Congress [APC], engage in organized protest, not against the government, which is within their rights to, but against opposition figures, who have no administrative responsibility towards those protesting. Yet, at various points in 2023—which had all the tensions that come with an election year—pro-Bola Ahmed Tinubu (at the time, the president-elect) supporters staged demonstrations against major opposition candidates, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi. The demonstrators affirmed their national leader, Tinubu, won the election. They also suggested that Atiku should retire from politics and claimed that ‘Obidients’ (supporters of Obi) made the election a smooth ride for their candidate. How these became protest demands is inexplicable. After all, they believed their candidate won the election. Even more jarring, this group of supporters went on to put ‘the nation on notice that no one will be allowed to intimidate the Nigerian judiciary any longer’.

POWER AND PROTESTS

The question is not whether the judiciary could be intimidated or not, or whether some people, in decrying the conduct of the elections, did right by doxing the presidential election tribunal judges and their families (for the avoidance of doubt; that was completely wrong). However, the media played into the hands of charlatans by referring to the pro-Tinubu marchers as ‘protesters’ or their fatuous parade as a ‘protest’. At the time, the government of the APC had been in power for the past eight years and will be extending (has extended) its administration through Tinubu. Of the ten Supreme Court justices then, seven were appointed by the former president, APC’s Muhammadu Buhari.

The argument here is not that pro-government supporters cannot engage in public demonstrations to air their grievances. Everyone has an inalienable right to self-expression. However, words have meanings, and when a demonstration is called a ‘protest’, it carries implicit assumptions. Even if the demonstrators think of themselves as protesting, the media should not be found propagating such an idea.

There was a similar incident later in July 2023, when another pro-government group converged at the National Assembly complex to express solidarity with the president over the hike in fuel prices. If you organize a solidarity march and call it a ‘protest’, who or what are you ‘protesting’ against? And what are the demands of such a protest? What exactly makes a protest a protest?

In my opinion, there are two factors: power asymmetry and the presence of a threat. Taken in its most literal sense, a protest is an expression of objection, although the term is mostly associated with the public demonstration of an objection towards authority. To avoid any confusion, my major concern here is protests as public demonstrations. They come in various forms, including civil disobedience, strikes, marches and rallies, sit-ins, posters, hunger strikes, songs, vigils, and more. Sometimes they get violent and involve unjustifiable acts such as riots, looting, and vandalism.

Across these forms, it is noticeable that protests are directed towards authority by people who are less powerful in society. I’m tempted to refer to the two parties as ‘the powerful’ and ‘the powerless’ respectively, but that would be inaccurate. Power asymmetry is not just vertical; it can be horizontal too since it means a mismatch of power between two parties. A protest aims to draw attention to this asymmetry wherever the authority responsible for doing something is slacking in its duties.

The second factor, and a far more important one, is that of threat. When individuals in any society feel threatened by the actions or inactions of those who occupy positions of authority, they tend to want to find an outlet for the threat. The most pragmatic way to do so, while ensuring that the issues that caused the threats are resolved, is to direct the pressure towards the leaders who are responsible for causing change. It is, therefore, no surprise that advocacy groups are referred to as ‘pressure groups’; that, in my opinion, is an apt term.

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POWER AND PROTESTS

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