Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka has sharply criticised President Bola Tinubu’s recent nationwide address, arguing it inadequately addressed the violent suppression of #EndBadGovernance protesters by security agencies.
The protests, which erupted across major cities, have been driven by widespread discontent over the high cost of living, hardship, and poverty attributed to federal policies, including the removal of the fuel subsidy and the devaluation of the naira.
Soyinka’s criticism came after President Tinubu’s first nationwide speech since the demonstrations, in which he called for calm and reaffirmed his stance on subsidy removal without offering significant concessions.
Soyinka, in a statement released on Sunday, expressed disappointment with the President’s response and the government’s approach to managing protests.
“The President’s outline of remedial actions will undergo expert scrutiny for effectiveness,” Soyinka stated. “My primary concern is the continuing deterioration in the state’s handling of protest management, which the address failed to address adequately.”
Soyinka condemned the use of live ammunition and tear gas against protesters, describing it as a “retrogression” that recalls colonial-era practices. He argued that such measures only exacerbate public resentment and hinder progress, comparing the situation unfavourably to the earlier ENDSARS protests.
The statement read, “Live bullets as state response to civic protest – that becomes the core issue. Even tear gas remains questionable in most circumstances, certainly an abuse in situations of clearly peaceful protest. Hunger marches constitute a universal S.O.S, not peculiar to the Nigerian nation. They belong indeed in a class of their own, never mind the collateral claims emblazoned on posters. They serve as summons to governance that a breaking point has been reached and thus, a testing ground for governance awareness of public desperation.
“The tragic response to the ongoing hunger marches in parts of the nation, and for which notice was served, constitutes a retrogression that takes the nation even further back than the deadly culmination of the watershed ENDSARS protests. It evokes pre-independence – that is, colonial – acts of disdain, a passage that induced the late stage pioneer Hubert Ogunde’s folk opera BREAD AND BULLETS, earning that nationalist serial persecution and proscription by the colonial government.
“The nation’s security agencies cannot pretend unawareness of alternative models for emulation, civilised advances in security intervention. Need we recall the nationwide 2022/23 editions of what is generally known as the YELLOW VEST movement in France? Perhaps it is time to make such scenarios compulsory viewing in policing curriculum.
“In all of the coverage that I watched, I did not catch one single instance of a gun levelled at protesters, much less fired at them even during direct physical confrontations. The serving of bullets where bread is pleaded is ominous retrogression, and we know what that eventually proves – a prelude to far more desperate upheavals, not excluding revolutions.”
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