By Usman Santuraki
One of the lessons learnt from the hunger protest by the youths which began on August 1, 2024, is how the leadership at various levels of government become jittery and rattled. It has proven to all, that members of the leadership class in Nigeria are not doing the right thing.
Almost two weeks before the protest, both the broadcast and print media were awash with comments and counter-comments about the hunger protest. It became a daily routine for one to hear or read in the newspapers, comments on the hunger protest by leaders, clerics of the two most dominant religions as well as the traditional rulers at every level talking about the protest.
The real reason the youths and even some notable elder statesmen and stateswomen, especially from the north, like Dr. Usman Yusuf and Hajiya Naja’atu Mohammed were supporting the hunger protest was the feeling of despair, a consequence of the excruciating economic conditions caused by the administration of President Bola Tinubu, and supported by the members of the National Assembly, which made the youths to call for the protest.
Primarily, what caused the call was the administration’s decision to remove fuel subsidy and the floating of the naira. The cascading effects of these economic adversities are profound, resulting in high levels of impoverishment, criminality and societal unrest, all of which were caused by the political leadership at all levels of government.
The situation has deteriorated to such an extent that the people whom are outwardly seemed affluent have resorted to soliciting assistance to feed their families. Then what about the commonest man and woman in the society who even to feed once in a day had really become a problem for them?
Prices of foodstuffs have hit the roof with large families barely surviving by going for things that were seldom consumed but left as feeds for animals.
Feeding has become the most challenging aspect of life for the average person in the country as a result of the failure of the leadership at all levels in taking care of the vast majority of people, especially the less privileged ones.
The leadership didn’t want to withstand the clamour for the hunger protest. As such, it went on rampage like what the District Head of Bosso in Minna Emirate Council of Nigeria State did by removing the Wakilin Matasan Bosso from his position because he declared support for the hunger protest.
A columnist with Daily Trust Nasir Aminu, said: “Since their rise to power a decade ago, the All Progressives Congress government has imposed harmful neo-liberal policies, mostly proposed by the Bretton Woods institutions. The IMF and World Bank advisers will not dare propose such policies in their respective home countries. The policies have brought nothing but economic hardship to Nigerians.”
All these cascaded in prompting the youths to embark on the hunger protest.The political leadership at all levels should not expect the people to remain docile, while they continue loading on them and making unprintable statements like that of the Senate President Godswill Akpobio.
Therefore, the hunger protest embarked upon by the youths and other Nigerians should serve as a wake up call for the political leadership that the people are daily becoming a force to reckon with and can longer tolerate the excesses of the leadership at all levels.
With the hunger protest, the teeming youths have sent a strong notice to the political leadership of the Nigerian nation, that they should mitigate the barrier between the leadership and the people by delivering quality service as well as having it at the back of their minds, that it is the power of the people that gave them the opportunity to occupy the various positions they are holding today.
The leadership should know by now, that the people can longer bear the shocks of their maladministration and shenanigans. The should know that any can happen.
Santuraki, a political analyst, wrote from Demsawo, Jimeta-Yola, Adamawa State