Prof. Chris Mustapha Nwaokobia Jnr. is the Convener of the Countryfirst movement.
When some citizens during the last General Elections decided to desecrate ancestral values, norm and tradition by deploying the ORO Traditional programmatic to stop Nigerians of other ethnicity from Voting in Lagos and or mobilizing to stop President Bola Ahmed Tinubu then a candidate from winning the Presidential election, little did they know that the gods would be angry. More than one year into the Tinubu Administration, it is apparent that the government lacks direction. As a Mystic and one vast in Metaphysics I can boldly say that the gods are angry. And rather than appease the gods, they have again proceeded to deploy the ORO programmatic for political end, they are threatening to use ORO to frustrate the Right and the Freedom of Protest, to stifle the right to protest against hunger and want, and to divide the nation even more dangerously along ethnic, regional and religious lines. But there is a price for everything.
Those who see their traditional values and the Yoruba pride beyond the obfuscating blindfolds of politics would understand and agree completely with my drift. The Tinubu candidacy and now Presidency has consistently politicized the ORO values and for political goals they repudiate the sacredness of the ORO protocol, they undermine ancestral values and politic with everything.
To shamelessly deploy tradition to politics and desecrate ancestral values and practices, and progressively undermine its consequences is anathema, but they wouldn’t listen, so I wish them well, however there is a price for all we do, and in the very end we shall harvest what we sow.
They have argued that renegades and touts would hijack the forthcoming Protest Against Hunger slated to begin on the 1st of August, 2024, whereas they are funding and sponsoring Protests across the land, and they call the criminal and corruptive charade PROTESTERS AGAINST PROTEST, NO TO PROTEST etc. Is the Tinubu Presidency not tired of messing with our collective values and morals? Why are they funding Cashtivists, and procuring men and women of easy values and virtue to march against their soul, conscience and essence? Why can’t they ensure that the Anti-hunger Protesters get the same security support that they give to ‘their own’ Pro-Hunger Protesters? Why are they consistently criminalizing the Peaceful Protest planned by Patriotic Gen Z Nigerians? Can their threats and nullification stop an idea whose time has come, I DOUBT.
I have seen a hoard of Dissociaters, most of them obviously under pay. Some suffering and Smiling, apologies to the Late Abami Eda (Fela Kuti). I read a release stating that a certain 407 Ethnic Nationality Groups have dissociated from the Protest, as though hunger and pain knows ethnicity. I saw a young man who calls himself the President of the National Association of Nigerian Students NANS struggling without being convincing to explain the position of his paymasters. Why do we have Security Agencies if all the arguments against the Protests are that villains and miscreants may hijack the planned nationwide Protest? I hear Sunday Igboho is opposed to the Protest as though it were against the Yoruba Race, unknown to him Afenifere Worldwide supports the protest and has called on the Government not to stifle the right to Peaceful Protest.
With an alleged 6 Billion naira budgeted by the Federal Government to manage the protest already in the mill, why therefore is Presidency paying and compromising young hapless Nigerians into a new trade that we may all regret. Yes, there is a new deal that the Progressively Shameless are about to create, THREATEN A PROTEST, HYPE IT AND GET SETTLED WITH BILLIONS, that was how kidnap for ransom became a lucrative albeit demonic trade, and how bottomless corruption became our nations tapestry. I weep for Nigeria.
The Tinubu Presidency is very obviously determined and programmed to mess up everything that counts for sane values, morals and mores. From Grab it, and run away with it as its preelection narrative to kakistocracy and kleptomania. From profligacy, looting and wanderlust to bribing and compromising the levers of protestation. And from destroying the pillars of unity to raising up and deepening our fault lines ditto ethnic baiting, religious inveigle and nepotism. Indeed the so-called Progressives are Progressively Shameless.
To the paladins of the Protests yet in the mill, I ask that decency and decorum be your watchword, do not allow the enemies of State to kill or dampen your resolve, and do not allow infiltrators to sabotage your resolve to have a Peaceful Protest for eternal vigilance is the price of Freedom. Do not give up for every generation out of relative obscurity will discover its mission, fulfill or betray it. And do not be cowed for opposition is the pristine street in the city called Patriotism. Nigeria will be great again.
I’m CHUKWUDUMEBI.
