One of the previous Nigerian heads of state once said that if an insurgency in a country last more than 24 hours, that means that the government is actively aware and involved in it which made me realize, and I will continue to say that the government of this country really did a very terrible thing that still hurts me properly and a lot of Nigerians after what happened during the 2020 protest. A lot of Nigerians came out so that their voices can be heard with flags in their hands, but a peaceful protest ended up being a massacre and this has forever changed my perspective of how our leader handles things with no safety and dignity I will say.
I could remember that evening on November 20th 2020 when the viral video showed the army were shooting innocent protesters. Seeing this brought a pain to my heart because some innocent souls were shot that day for no just cause, and till today, the government has said they never ordered the shooting. Who then did? Because what I see today is that the government only use their power to protect themselves and not we the citizens.
Just like the way the president of America talked about this country by calling it a country of particular concern also made me to realize that the evil that is currently going on is not just about orders or weapons, permission has been given to these people to do as they like. Because when those people in places of authority give room for violence, a lot of people will weaponize it and everyone will be living in panic.
While I was growing up, they taught us to always respect the elders and not question their leadership but the truth is that these same leaders are not doing the right thing, and we the citizens are at the receiving end with no proper justice. And this has clearly shown that those in government authorities are not working for or values the lives of human rather, they protect themselves instead.
Like one of these Nigerian activists usually says, "Today's victims were yesterday's survivors". We humans can easily adapt to things because we feel safe but keeping quiet for long and not speaking up about this cruelty might later affect us. But what I know is that as long as we keep talking about this injustice, we are taking a step to not normalizing it.
And in a democratic government like ours where the government cannot easily put an end to all these insurgencies, only teaches one thing that in a government like this, power in the wrong hands can bring a country down.
And with the way it is going on, the best we can do is to continue speaking up against this cruelty and be very conscious about who will vote to power because we deserve a better leader here and we need to put our fears aside and we need to always stay conscious because that is where the healing starts.
Thank you for reading.
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