Few weeks ago when I visited Kaduna, a friend asked me whether it is
worth for the opposition in Nigeria to continue challenging the PDP
status quo given the power of incumbency in blocking any attempt to
dislodge it from its dominant position on the Nigerian political
landscape. This is the third time my friend noticed my involvement in
opposition politics whenever national elections are around. I told him
that though it will continue to be difficult for the opposition to
overthrow PDP through the ballot box, it is, nonetheless, important that
it continue trying. And I did not hesitate to give him the theoretical
foundations of my thought.
Throughout history, I explained, power has posed an enigma to the
mankind. It appears overwhelming and humanity has always been driven to
the point of despondency by the tyranny of political class in power. Not
even the Messengers of God were exempted from this rule. But as it
endures that oppression, humanity keeps a permanent memory of every
event, small or big, in its mind. Such bad memories continue to
accumulate until it reaches a threshold that makes it ripe for a burst.
Suddenly, a population that has endured decades or even centuries of
oppression bursts in unison and revolts, putting behind it all the
differences that enabled its enslavement. The trigger could be an event
so small that no one would be able to predict. But as soon as it occurs,
chains of other events follow leading to the revolution. The afraid
conquers fear and with determination confronts his oppressors that
become immobilized through shock of the most unexpected. In the end, the
tyrant abandons his fort and takes to his heels. His supporters vanish
as if they never existed. A new nation is born.
I told my friend that it is like a forest that accumulates litter on its
floor over many years without a fire visiting it. All it takes for
everything in it to change is a small event, a small fire lit
artificially by a single match or naturally by a lightening, and,
behold, a passerby who left it quiet in the morning returns in the
afternoon to find it blazing with fury, consuming everything in its
former state, of flora and fauna, fresh and dry. All that is required to
destroy the old order is the accumulation of sufficient litter and that
small flame to touch it somewhere and a new one is eventually born.
So I told my friend that we will continue with our little effort,
exploiting every opportunity out there. The opposition may seem divided
and may never be close to overturn events. It may even be a fake
opposition composed of people who share the same materialistic ideals of
the ruling party. The Messiah may not even be among them. It does not
make any difference because that is not the fundamental function of the
opposition in the revolutionary process. It needs to exist before litter
of the forest floor could pile up. It needs to exist before the ruling
party could rig elections, before it could conquer more states, before
it could be deceived by its victory and the money it looted into
believing and boasting that it will rule for the next 50 years or
forever. It will continue to destroy the economy, rendering more youths
into unemployment, more masses into poverty. When the litter of anger
and frustration is sufficiently accumulated, it will just be waiting for
that small flame and the people who were divided by history, geography,
politics, gender, religion or tribe would unite and confront their
oppressors in a stunning way.
Just a week after our conversation, somewhere in the world – Tunisia –
where the litter of public frustration has sufficiently accumulated over
decades of dictatorship, the small flame was unknowingly triggered by an
unemployed undergraduate, Bouazizi, who set himself ablaze in response
to a humiliating maltreatment from a policewoman. Suddenly, his anger
triggered the anger in other youths and the rest of the population and
the wild fire started… It did not take time for the tyrant to flee,
abandoning his mansions and loot.
A day after the success of the Tunisian revolution, on 25 January, the
fire reached Egypt, catching everyone, including the CIA and the
Egyptian dictator, unawares. Mubarak attempted many times to overcome
the revolution, first with brutality then with concessions. But it was
too late. The fuel that accumulated from the oppression of thirty years
emergency rule is sufficient to consume him and the entire powers behind
him. The flame has already started at the bottom of the forest.
Destruction of the old order is both inevitable and logical. At last,
the power of oppression had to give way to the power of the human will
in its match to freedom. A new Egypt is born after 60 years of military
dictatorship.
The events in Egypt are interesting to me in a particular way. One of
the bloggers at the centre of the Tahrir Square events was Mahmoud
Salem, with whom we attended the German Berlin 2010 Bloggertour in May
last year. I remember one morning when I was walking with Eman, a Saudi
blogger, to catch a train to an event and Mahmoud was some ten steps or
so ahead of us. Eman was revealing to me her pessimism about any change
in the rights of women in Saudi Arabia, the central theme of her blog.
Mahmoud has been expressing similar hopelessness regarding human rights
in Egypt.
I tried to encourage Eman that she should not relent as success may come
even after our lives. She suddenly stopped and looked at me in the eyes,
saying that she can’t wait for that day. She wants it to come now. As if
I have committed blasphemy, the mother of two and a daughter of a high
ranking army general, Eman, shouted at Mahmoud: “Mahmoud, stop and hear
what Ali is saying… that we must not relent even if success would only
come after our lives.” Mahmoud, who is in his late twenties, promptly
laughed and said, “No, I want it during my lifetime. What is my benefit
if it comes later.”
I am sure when Mahmoud said so he did not know that it was just by the
corner… I read on his blog how he was tear-gassed, brutalized, shot at
and his car destroyed by the police and pro-Mubarak demonstrators at
Tahrir square eight days ago. Yesterday, I listened to him with delight
on al-Jazeerah, speaking about the Egyptian revolution, how it has
caught everyone by surprise and the role he will play in shaping the
political future of Egypt.
To me the most important benefit of the bloggertour is how it allowed me
to intimately learn the bad state of affairs in other nations. Many are
by far worse than ours. Some have lived under more gloomy conditions. I
remember Nigar Fatalayeva, the Azeri girl who, after a presentation of
how a German NGO is carrying the ardours task of parliamentary watchdog,
stood up and said, “Well, it is nice learning what you guys have been
doing. It is very good. For me, it is just for the sake of knowledge. It
will not be possible to do this in my country.” This girl in her
twenties, I think, was the most pessimistic in the group.
However, the events in Egypt must be changing our minds in different
continents. From Azerbaijan I am sure that by now Nigar has been sending
text messages and emails of congratulations to her boyfriend, Mahmoud.
She must be proud of him. But more importantly she must have be more
optimistic now, that even Azeris would one day free themselves from the
shackles of dictatorship. If Mubarak can fall without a single bullet
fired by the opposition, then any tyrant can be dislodged by its
determined populace.
In Nigeria our task is even easier. We do not have the chronic tyranny
that is found in the many countries in the developing world. What we
have is corruption that is perpetrated by very vulnerable temporary
leaders who, coming from poor backgrounds, are just interested in
looting the treasury to guarantee their future. We do not really have
the brutal tyrannies like those of Mubarak, Gaddafi, Ben Ali, etc. Such
tyranny is usually as a result of years of continuous domination by an
individual under the approval of superpowers.
Egypt may be ahead of us in many ways, especially in infrastructure.
Throughout the days at Tahrir Square, there was not a blackout for even
a second. Ninety-five percent of the population has access to
uninterrupted electricity. In addition, only 56% of the population live
under two dollars per day. In Nigeria, over 70% of the population is
living under one dollar per day; and electricity is an exception where
less than 1% of the population has access to uninterrupted electricity.
What is missing is the state police that would perpetrate the brutality
of mass arrests, torture, killings, outlawing opposition, martial law,
etc, unlike in Egypt which has witnessed such regime of inhuman
treatment for sixty years.
As I write this article, the fire has reached Algeria and Yemen.
Protests like those of Egypt have taken gained full momentum. And so
would that fire that was lit by Bouazizi continue to torch on many
tyrannical regimes across the world. Though many Arab regimes are
bribing their citizens with monthly stipends since the revolution
started, I doubt if the Middle East will ever be the same after the
birth of a new Egypt.
Nigeria will not be an exception. Despite our ethnic and religious
differences which our oppressors readily inflame and sustain in order to
divide us, we the masses will rise sooner or later in unison to wipe
them out. All the requisite elements are here. For decades now we have
watched the riches of our nation plundered by the same group who were
recruited to serve in the military in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
They continue to toss us from one member of the group to another for
over four decades now. The crunching poverty is here. The army of
unemployed youths is increasing by millions yearly. And there is a PDP –
the face of our own Mubarak – that is set to unleash its regime of
corruption on us for the next 50 years or more.
Though I have many times lamented the gullibility of our masses and the
docility of our elite, I am confident that we have among our people the
necessary genetic material to overcome fear and institute revolt. Revolt
and pride has been part of the history of almost every tribe in this
country. If that feeling is soothed in the elite that is enjoying the
regime of loot or in the old who are tired of waiting, it is fresh in
the blood of the youths who remain deprived of jobs and of any dignified
future. Members of this group have forty to sixty years ahead of them.
It will not be surprising if a Bouazizi arises from their midst.
Or it may not even be that long. No one is sure what will happen by
April 2011 when the PDP successfully returns itself to power either by
rigging or by other machinations against the opposition like the ongoing
inflammation of religious differences and blocking any move for a common
front against it. I do not know when the match would be lit. I do not
know who would light it. But I am sure that there is enough fuel here at
the bottom of the Nigerian human forest to create the inferno that will
consume the oppressors of the Nigerian masses. When the time comes, I am
sure that Nigerian youths will throw away their differences and unite
behind their shared interest in a dignified future to conquer fear and
fill with protests the streets of Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kaduna, Enugu,
Maiduguri, Sokoto, Ibadan, Jos and more importantly, Abuja. The police
and the army, who are themselves oppressed, unlike in Egypt, cannot and
will not stop them.
Let us take the new tools of social networking more seriously. Our
condition over the years has been exacerbated by a collaborative
mainstream press. The newspapers in Nigeria have played the greatest
role in dividing its people and collecting bribes from the government in
order to publish the falsehood that undermines the evolution of any
popular movement. The new tools of social networking provide progressive
minds with independent means of networking and organisation. I pity how
we waste the valuable walls of our Facebooks with frivolous postings
that do not add any value to anyone when youths in other countries are
using them to liberate themselves. Let us use them to inform one another
of every single act of oppression and corruption that the government is
performing. Let us boldly use them as avenues of convening and sharing
ideas on the way forward, something from which we do need the approval
of a commissioner of police. More importantly, let us be ready to pay
the ultimate price. It is better we die as heroes and martyrs than live
in humiliating poverty and debasing mutual hatred.
This is the message from Egypt. You can also do it. You must not wait
for the military to do it for you as we mistakenly did in the past.
Liberation is not done by coups today, but by civil uprising and mass
protest. So, throw away the shackles of division, go beyond the borders
of religion, ethnicity, geography and history to embrace every other
Nigerian with love using the powerful tool of social networking.
Together, chart a course to liberate yourselves from oppression. Conquer
fear, tell the truth, act boldly and, when the time comes, march jointly
and chase away the corrupt political elite that are responsible for your
misery.
The old must not be less committed than the young in this task. We have
great responsibility to the millions of children we have already brought
to this world. Ours is done. We have little, if any, remaining. What
must seize every opportunity to bequeath a better future for our
children, not through the false assurance of corruptly acquired wealth,
but through a freedom that we may purchase for them using the most
valuable asset we have – our lives.
One day, sooner than later, the Sahara winds will not only carry dust to
its southern borders but also the contagion of liberation. Without
firing a single bullet at the political elite, the Eagle Square will be
transformed from the venue where political charades are mounted to a
ground where the Nigerian masses will be freed from corrupt regimes and
unprincipled political class.