THE breeze felt like it was coming from a river. I closed my eyes and took a long greedy breath. Everywhere was quiet. From my balcony, I could see the entire stretch of my street. No noisy honks. No noise from domestic workers in the next compound. I leaned back into my balcony chair. I smiled. Funke, not everything is bad about this protest. And don’t scream at me, it’s the way I’m wired. I always look for the bright side of every dark situation. I guess it is my special coping skill. So, I have enjoyed the quietness this protest has brought to Lagos State. The air is cleaner. Our eardrums are in rest-mode. The wives and side-chicks of NURTW members have had unlimited access to their men. In fact, many women danced better in church last Sunday and I think it is because of the improved network service at home. If you live in the Lagos Lekki axis, free flow of traffic is luxury unless you are using the road before six in the morning or after 10pm. With everybody at the protest venue or on their balcony, all was well with the road. You still think I’m unpatriotic right? Let me tell you another one. Artisans, electricians, plumbers and carpenters that I had been chasing for one repair in the last two months or the other were readily available during this protest. They picked their calls on the first ring and completed their jobs in record time. #End bad work ethic. They are happy and so am I.
So, am I anti-protest? No. Maybe this hardship did not me. Ah, what do you know? The elubo (yam flour) I used to buy for #55,000 icons me #120,000 two weeks ago. Meaning that I could only buy half, after adding #5,000 to the budget of what I used to buy. The gaari I sold on my farm for #26,000 in January now sells for #78,000. Don’t even talk about pepper or my favourite fish. It’s all so sad and I don’t believe you can successfully starve a child, beat her and still prevent her from crying. The outcome will be like shaking a bottle of coke vigorously and still expecting you can control how the soda will get out of the bottle when you uncork. So, this protest is not just good because I got to breath in clean air. It was also good because it allows the release of pent-up anger by decent protesters. It allowed Nigerians to show their leaders that they have gotten to the end of their tether and that all was no longer well. Imagine if we all beginning to shake our bottles of pent-up frustrations up and down for six more months and something just triggers the opener. I don’t want to picture the unbridled anger of Nigerians when they feel cheated. I lived through the horror of the 1983 post governorship election violence in the old Oyo State. The blood, the gory sight, thick smokes and huge businesses that ended up belly-up. Letting people express their pains is important and this protest hopefully will set us all, the ruled and the rulers on the right path.
However, as our elders say, even if we are crying, we must try to see through our tears. Many states, sadly all within the North are not, right now, seeing through their tears. For reasons we can imagine and the ones we do not want to imagine , the protests in the North have assumed another dimension. We are seeing the things some of us predicted many years ago. The #Endbadgovernance wind has blown and exposed the rump of the chicken. I don’t even want to put words to why anyone would climb a traffic light pole, disconnect it and take it home. Another dragged home the signage of a police station, while tailors somewhere sat and sewed tons of Russians flags. No, I won’t even try to analyze how or who procured the materials, the fabrics for the Russian flags, who provided the fund, located the tailors (oh yes, there are many of them) and know how long it took to plan all this hijacking of our peace, along with armoured personnel carrier. Anybody God gave half the sense of a goose knows that you can only predict the beginning of a war. Nobody can predict how and when it will end. And because wars are not like pap that you eat with ‘moi-moi’ or ‘akara’. Once they start, they assume lives of their own, take whatever turns in the road they choose, causing carnage, blood and tears.
Thank God for Lagos. Thank God for Governor Babajide Sanwo- Olu. After the #Endsars, I must confess, I contemplated running to my hometown to avoid fumes of tear gas and flying bullets as August 1 approached. I even alerted my travel agent In case I had to buy an emergency ticket. But none of my fears came to pass. Yes, we protested in Lagos but it didn’t turn violent. If you lived through the June 12 riots and the #Endsars, you will understand why this Lagos peace in protest is making me blink several times and wiping my eyes in incredulous thanksgiving. Have you ever struggled to buy one candle and find a way to make it last one week, cook in the open with sawdust after years of comfy cooking with gas-cooker? Those who can lived in the Lagos of 1994 can relate. Don’t scream, but I’m suspecting that Governor Sanwo-Olu has Juju. Ok, go ahead and scream. He has juju. He didn’t blow some powder in the wind? He didn’t chant some incantations to ensure we are calm? I have a right to my suspicion and it doesn’t matter whether they are fundamental human or woman right. I insist, Mr. Governor did something right. Come on, imagine if he had taken lightly the “Igbo Must Go” gang or discountenaced the “Lagos is no man’s land” chants.
Imagine if the two gangs had been on the streets for even two hours. Someone even listed and widely circulated on social media the list and locations of supermarkets owned by Lagosians of Igbo descent!
BOS, as we fondly call him, didn’t sit on his hands. He didn’t assume that if the heavens caved in, it will suffocate 36 states. He didn’t sit in his office to await progress report or just set up a situation room. He did something. He came out. He engaged. He addressed our fears, reminded us of the consequences of listening to those who are beating the drums of war they have no intention of dancing to. Protests done and dusted. Kudos to Governor Babajide Sanwo Olu’s efforts. Here’s hoping the route that led us here will be blocked. Let Lagos look in the direction of its Farm Estates to grow food and establish Lagos Food Markets. It’s its lowest hanging fruit.
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