Soyinka expressed concern over the president’s omission of a critical issue in a statement. He said:
“I set my alarm clock for this morning to ensure that I did not miss President Bola Tinubu’s eagerly awaited address to the nation regarding the current unrest.
“His outline of the government’s remedial actions since inception, aimed at preventing such outbreaks, will undoubtedly receive expert and sustained attention for both effectiveness and content analysis. My primary concern, quite predictably, is the continuing deterioration of the state’s management of protests, an area in which the presidential address fell conspicuously short.
“Such neglect of civic rights regrettably empowers the security forces to act with impunity, condemning the nation to a seemingly unbreakable cycle of resentment and reprisals. The use of live bullets as a state response to civic protest is the core issue. Even tear gas remains questionable in most circumstances and is certainly an abuse in situations of clearly peaceful protest. Hunger marches are a universal S.O.S, not unique to Nigeria, and serve as a summons to governance that a breaking point has been reached, testing the government’s awareness of public desperation.
“The tragic response to the ongoing hunger marches in parts of the nation, for which notice was served, constitutes a regression that takes the nation back even further than the deadly culmination of the ENDSARS protests. It evokes pre-independence, colonial acts of disdain, similar to the inspiration behind Hubert Ogunde’s folk opera BREAD AND BULLETS, which led to nationalist persecution and proscription by the colonial government.
“The nation’s security agencies cannot claim ignorance of alternative, civilized models of security intervention. Need we recall the nationwide 2022/23 editions of the YELLOW VEST movement in France? Perhaps it is time to make such scenarios compulsory viewing in police training. In all the coverage I watched, I did not see a single instance of a gun being leveled at protesters, much less fired, even during direct physical confrontations.
“The use of bullets where bread is pleaded is an ominous regression, leading to far more desperate upheavals, including revolutions. The time is long overdue to permanently abandon the anachronistic resort to lethal means by security agencies. No nation is so underdeveloped, materially impoverished, or internally insecure that it lacks the will to set an example. All it takes is recalling its own history and exercising the will to commence a lasting transformation, breaking the chain of lethal responses against civic society.
“Today’s marchers may consider adopting the key songs of Hubert Ogunde’s BREAD AND BULLETS, if only to instill a sense of shame in the ongoing failure to transcend the lure of colonial inheritance, where we all were at the receiving end. One way or another, this vicious cycle must be broken.”
