The destruction of public properties during a protest has only one colour; it is called Colour Stupid
I love colours. They not only define the personality, they also say a lot. This is why conventional wisdom of signs has given colours different tags. For some strange reason, convention thinks that white represents peace. This is why the white handkerchief is never out of my handbag. Before the altercation begins, man, I am already waving the blessed white cloth in the face of my accuser: peace, peace, be still. I do not want to go to jail for having my bumper bashed. Oh yes, it has happened.
Most people think blue is the colour of love, when the going is good, that is. No one has ever told me what the colour of a failed love is – red, do you think, or blue and red? I know people think red is the colour of danger but I think that’s because it coincides with the colour of blood (dangerous, man!) and the fact that even the worst cataracts can discern a red cloth tied to the rear end of a vehicle ferrying some long iron rods that can inadvertently penetrate the brain of an unwary speed racer. Oh yes, it has also happened.
So, all these colours stand for one thing or the other, but please don’t tell the women and men, mothers and fathers, brides and grooms who choose wedding colours for themselves or their wards. Neither they nor I have any idea of what colours like burgundy, champagne, turquoise, teal or fuchsia stand for: confusion perhaps?
Someone once wrote that a country should please change the colour of their problems because people were arguing needlessly over the colour of a few busses. So, if problems can have colours, me thinks, so can protests. Such colours would range from white – meaning peaceful protest, to crimson red – meaning ‘everyone, take cover!’ All the colours in-between would signify anything from ‘join the protest’ to ‘stay at the back waving your handkerchief and smiling’.
Right now though, good people, I am protesting so many things and I am not smiling. To start with, Nigeria lost to Germany in the current Rio Olympic Games. Imagine that; considering that Nigeria used to supply Germany with players for her teams. Worse still, I don’t know if we can undo that loss or the damage that has done to my psyche. I don’t know, but I probably will not be able to eat again.
Something else that might have cheered me up is getting my wish that the budget padding story would just go away. This means of course that it should disappear from national discourse like so many other stories of great embezzlements that have done the disappearing act in this country, and leave us with our peace. He who knows no difference knows no pain.
Instead of going away, however, the padding story seems to be thickening in all of its dimensions like the falling Naira and we are all watching in dismay. I tell you, that Naira is fast becoming one vacant plot! At this rate, my ambition to build my own skyscraper this year is being greatly devalued, again, like my Naira.
Unfortunately, I am also not cheered by all the news I am reading in the papers these days. How on earth we expect to prosper in this country when we are so destructive still beats me. Here, we have all complained that our political leaders hardly know the difference between stealing and corruption, abusing and desecrating or even between destroying and pulling down. Why, as far as Nigerian politicians are concerned, they are not destroying the state, they are only pulling down its structures. More, many of them do not think they are desecrating their fatherland; they are only guilty of a few abuses such as stealing, which by no means can be called corruption.
Here then are the youths who appear to have been very studious of their politician-fathers’ pastimes and have joined in the desecration, sorry abuse of their fatherland by destroying, sorry pulling down of a few structures. Imagine my surprise to read that students of a south-western university went out in a protest and promptly burnt at least seven cars! Can you just imagine that?
According to the report, the students were protesting the fact the school’s authorities did not seem to care that their off-campus hostel was being attacked frequently by robbers. I mean, they were protesting about their off-campus hostel! Oh sorry; did I say that already? Well, as a result of that protest at least seven offices or innocent persons are without their cars now courtesy of students deciding to take up arms against the body they can catch. It’s a case of if you can’t get the ball, then get the leg that plays the ball, as we professionals say in football.
Something much worse but in the same vein is said to have occurred in Lagos sometime ago. Some unfortunate okada rider was said to have contravened the law against using the lane dedicated to the BRT and Emergency services and got crushed in the process. In retaliation, a mob quickly gathered and acted as judge, jury and executioner by destroying forty-seven of those buses that serve the public. I ask you! How on earth is one to explain that kind of protest? What colour was it wearing? The most worrisome part is that I have not read any news report on the matter telling me that someone or ones have been arrested and held responsible for that action. Yet, someone started it.
Unfortunately, the protest that comes in this colour has seemed to replicate itself greatly in many Nigerian cities. Groups of people feeling cheated and disgruntled about one facet of Nigerian life or the other just take it into their heads to let go their anger and begin to destroy public properties. And yet, here we are crying about insufficiency in Nigeria. Here we are crying about failed infrastructures. Here we are indeed crying about so many lacks in our national life. As the common parlance goes, I wonder what part of the fact that Nigeria is poor (to all intents and purposes) they do not understand.
Seriously, I think we better watch out. This new method of protesting can only grow worse; it never gets better. The destruction of public properties during a protest has only one colour; it is called Colour Stupid. How on earth can you justify the burning of forty-seven BRT buses, each of which costs millions of Naira in real and inflated values? Each of these buses serves thousands and thousands of people and helps them get to and from work and home each day more cheaply and more orderly, Lagos considering. How can you also justify the burning of private and public vehicles just to drive home a pointless point? Yet, some philistines think that their protests cannot be colourful enough if something dear to the public does not go up in flames.
Something needs to be said about the state response to these destructive habits during protests. Not only that no one is charged when these incidents occur, the governments even appear to go out of their way and bend over backwards to placate the protesters instead, ‘so that things don’t break down completely.’ Oh yeah?! And when would things show they have broken down completely? Would that be when forty-seven buses are burnt alive? Oh yes, when forty-seven buses BRT are burnt alive.
I know people are hungry these days. We all are. We are also angry, being so deprived and all; so anything can light the fuse of our protest. However, we need to know that when that fuse is lit, it does not discriminate on what it consumes. Before you know it, the protest soon changes to Colour Dangerous and EVERYONE gets burnt. We must watch out.
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