There is a special kind of pain when people who are meant to protect you become the ones who hurt you the most. It's one thing to suffer at the hands of criminals or bad individuals, but it's another kind of pain when one realizes that the harm is enabled, approved, and even ignored by our government. That realization breaks something inside every individual. It's already teaching us that our safety is not guaranteed and justice is selective.
Imagine the high level of insecurities in Nigeria. Bandits are not even afraid of showing their faces on camera. They openly threaten the citizens of the country, and the government turns deaf ears to the cry of its citizens. They even show when food has been supplied to them, an army general was killed like a common goat, and nothing was done about it; instead, they were defending it, saying that it wasn't a general. Even if it wasn't a general, it was our military personnel. What of herdsmen when they started killing innocent people on their farms? Then one farmer was able to defeat the herdsman and kill him, only for him to be arrested and sentenced to death for defending himself.
One of the things that breaks my heart is that the government goes out of their way to arrest anybody that tries to speak up against them, be they students, workers, or parents asking for a better condition or an end to abuse. They do not carry weapons; they carry hope. Yet each time they are met with force instead of dialogue from police brutality. They always come up with a particular excuse that they are maintaining peace, protecting the national interest, and preventing chaos. But whose peace is being protected when citizens are injured, arrested, or killed for simply asking to be heard?
The betrayal from government is usually loud. All their promises during the election and what the turnout is for Tae after the election are heartbreaking. When promises are broken, it leaves citizens feeling abandoned, and right now that's what every concerned citizen of Nigeria feels: betrayed and abandoned. It tells the poor, the young, and the vulnerable that their lives are expendable. Their nonchalant character says that our pain is inconvenient, our voice is dangerous, and our existence only matters during elections, and thereafter, we are invisible.
What is happening has exposed a lot about leadership; it has revealed leaders who are more committed to preserving power than protecting lives, like some governors of some states in Nigeria, like Kofi, Benue, and others. Leaders who surround themselves with comfort while people struggle daily. Over time they don't even care anymore; they now view citizens as problems to be managed rather than human beings to be served. One thing is that when empathy is lost, cruelty becomes policy, and oppression becomes routine.
Justice never gets to be served no matter how many times the citizens shout protests until it falls on deaf ears. The citizens are left to defend themselves. But another thing is that evil does not survive on leadership alone. It also thrives on the actions of individuals who choose to complain over compassion and also on those who make a mockery of individuals who speak out by supporting the government and turning the victim into a villain. People who carry out harm orders, knowing deep down that they are mistaken, but convincing themselves that “it’s just my job,” like the police. This is how systems of oppression survive, not only through those who give the orders, but through those who obey unquestioningly. It is a painful reminder of how easily humans can abandon conscience when power offers protections.
Images is mine
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