Just a few years ago, Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt experienced revolutions which forced power to change hands. The revolutions later tagged the Arab Spring of 2010 rocked North Africa and the Middle East and it had many despotic regimes beholden in fear that the people in Sub-Saharan Africa too would rise up against their government and topple it.
The people’s choice to upturn the incumbent regime just with the power of mobilizing a motivated citizenry had prevailed in these places. But it never happened. It would take a painstaking and long-drawn battle to get the sit-tight government of Laurent Gbagbo and Omar Bashir in Ivory Coast and Sudan to step down.
For so many years, especially during the military junta, citizens asking if Nigeria really needs a revolution to get better became the question on the minds of patriots who care to ponder. Some Nigerians who say they are altogether frustrated by what they refer to as “impunities by people in government,” sometimes wish for the worst – that the military staged a coup and begin to frusrate our democracy again. However, others who have witnessed the atrocities committed by the junta and the setback it has forced the country to tread know well enough that such a wish would return anarchy and destroy the fatherland this time around.
It was on this wavelength of hope and sticking to a belief in Mass Action, that self-acclaimed activist and presidential candidate in the 2019 elections, Omoyele Sowore, came forward with the proposition to lead a revolution in Nigeria. But what would be the essence of a violent revolution if same power imbalance, inequality and injustice will continue in the same scale afterwards?
As lacklustre as his strategy may seem; as much as it lacks tact and proper mobilization, Sowore is still the only person who has tried to lead an aggressive mass action against the President Muhammadu Buhari regime. The question of the legality of the aaction against a democratic elected government is left to be answered another day. But for politicians and activists who are used to the lobbyist models of mass protests, sit-in, hunger strikes and so on; deploying a similar strategy for a revolutionist agenda would basically amount to a breach of order in society.
Currently, the few-months-old protests are still holding in Hong Kong where protesters have been successful at having some of their demands met. In Sudan, protesting citizens and the opportunists who seized power as soon as Omar Bashir was booted out of office, also recently came to a power-sharing agreement in the country and effectively ended decades of tensions within groups in the country.
Whether he was right or wrong for volunteering to organise the #RevolutionNow protest which never really started, the full weight of the law came down on Sowore and he got arrested before his mission materialised. Whether he had made a wise choice to start a revolution or to keep trying his chance at the presidential elections every four years, at least he had also made an effort which will remain salient.
A quick examination of these recent revolutions across the world mostly reflects one fact: that a revolution mostly just changes the baton of power from one regime to a possibly even worse regime. The more regimes change, the more status quo might remain same; except the people themselves – the citizens who call themselves patriots move to set things right first rather than merely pushing for a transfer of power from one opportunist to another.
Featured Image Source: The Guardian NG
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