NOT THE FIRST TIME

I wrote some pieces, musings on country, that were published as opinion on 774ngr.com. As the year 2020 wraps up, I am bringing those pieces home, among my other musings, especially because the issues are still unsolved. This piece was finished on November 7th, 2020, in the aftermath of Nigeria's government's violent response to the #EndSARS protest.

Photo by Macau Photo Agency on Unsplash

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” – The Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem

The year is 1986. It is, as usual, a cold December. Thousands of students from Qinghua University in Beijing are on the streets, demanding an end to authoritarianism. They want democracy for the Chinese people. The economy is hard, and the inflation rate of 16% has increased the cost of living for the average Chinese. There is also corruption in the government, and you needed connections to get ahead. Other students in at least six other cities in China have been on this same mater for about three and a half weeks. Some just want constant electricity! The protests would continue till mid-January 1987. One of the students makes a profound statement: “We think democracy is not something given. It is something achieved and fought for.” There is a ban on public demonstrations. There is also a news blackout in China, and where the protests are hinted at, the media defends the Chinese government’s policies. The police, on government’s orders, uses force to disrupt the protests, but that angers the students and more of them came out and joined the protests.  About 150 Chinese universities across 17 cities take part in the protests. The protests would eventually dissipate without achieving any of its stated goals.

Photo by Hennie Stander on Unsplash

By 1989, the dissatisfaction of the students had swollen again. They wanted political and economic reforms. The peaceful protests began in different parts of China. In April, thousands of students carried banners and marched through Tiananmen Square, in the capital city of Beijing. The students got the attention of the world, as foreign journalists captured their protests. The protesting students were elitist. They refused the participation of peasants and workers. They made effort to show that they were not radicals, so they turned over two teachers who splashed ink on Mao’s portrait to the police.

Tank Man Photo by Jeff Widener

Yet, the Chinese government responded harshly. They arrested demonstration leaders. The students were accused of creating chaos. Any government official who showed any sympathy to the protesters was removed. The students feared the worst, though they had no idea how horrible it would be. They thought that if the government sent troops to Tiananmen Square, the entire nation would rise in their defence and the government would collapse. On June 3, 1989, the government directed the Chinese army to crush the protests. That night, in what is now known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, armed troops advanced toward Tiananmen Square, and fired live rounds into the crowd of protesters.  The military did the same in other Chinese cities, where there were protests. An unknown number of Chinese protesters were murdered. More were arrested and imprisoned. Salvation did not come from the Chinese citizens. 

The world was watching, right? They would punish the Chinese government heavily, right? Well, many foreign governments criticised the Chinese government. The U.S government suspended sales of arms to China. They imposed some economic sanctions too. But they valued their trade and investment in China more. The Chinese government labelled the protesters as anarchists and minimized the extent of the military’s action. They claimed that no one died in Tiananmen Square. Till date, public commemoration of the massacre is banned in China.

The protests were not a complete failure though. The Chinese government realised that they did not have absolute control as they had assumed and feared that their citizens would continue to demand their rights and could succeed the next time they tried. So, they conceded some personal liberties to the people, even though there is still no room for political dissent and freedom of speech and the press.

As for the protesters, many were imprisoned or forcibly disappeared. Some died in government custody. Some live with permanent physical disabilities, illness, and mental trauma. Some fled China and have found refuge in other countries. Some of them have continued their activism in different ways, seeking a better future for the Chinese people. Some of them became silent on political matters. Some of them now cooperate and work with the government because they do not believe there is any other way, or because they have been bought over. The Chinese government does not tolerate any form of independent activism and peaceful criticism.

Photographer unknown. Picture of rain over the River Nun from Google

In Nigeria, somewhere in the Niger-Delta region, the River Niger splits in two, forming two rivers – Nun and Forcados. On the bank of the River Nun, in Bayelsa State, is a town Odi, where a gang of bandits reportedly killed police officers. Most of the accounts report that 12 policemen were ambushed and killed, though another version reports that the bandits killed five policemen and four soldiers who tried to arrest them. The President of Nigeria issued a 14-day ultimatum to the government of Bayelsa State to produce the murderers or he would declare a state of emergency. Before the ultimatum expired though, the military invaded and blocked all the known exits from Odi. Instead of looking for the culprits and arresting them, they decided to wage war on an entire community of unarmed civilians. The King of Odi, King Bolo Efeke, thought he could reason with the military and pacify them. He thought they would respect his royalty. They shot him from a distance. Survivors, who largely escaped by the river, say that the military burnt buildings, raped women, and killed young and old.

According to human rights and civil society groups who visited Odi after the massacre, two weeks after the carnage, the community was littered with corpses, and the stench of decomposing bodies could still be perceived in the town. Only a few old women, old men and children could be seen around the town. The soldiers also left offensive graffiti on the walls of destroyed buildings. Only three buildings were left undamaged.

After the massacre, during a visit to the remnants of Odi, the then President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, is reported to have warned them “Let this not repeat itself. If it repeats itself, we will come by sea, by road, by air and I will not be there to control my boys.” The presidency even bragged about the Odi and Zaki Biam massacres, as examples of how to stop impunity.

The Zaki Biam tragedy is like the Odi Massacre. Zaki Biam is in Benue State, and in 2001, after 19 soldiers were murdered by some terrorists, the military invaded Zaki Biam and neighbouring Tiv communities, and for two days, there were indiscriminate shootings and destructions of property.

Gabriel Okara may have been prescient when he penned these lines in his famous poem, The Call of the River Nun:

I hear your lapping call!

I hear it coming through; invoking the ghost of a child listening, where river birds hail your silver-surfaced flow.

My river’s calling too!

Its ceaseless flow impels my found’ring canoe down its inevitable course.

And each dying year brings near the sea-bird call, the final call that stills the crested waves and breaks in two the curtain of silence of my upturned canoe.

Or maybe the lines were true then as it is now, because like the Teacher says, there is nothing new under the sun.

Rain does not fall on only one person’s doorstep. The massacres above are only a tiny bit of all the known and recorded massacres by governments. In the same Niger Delta Region, in Gbaramatu Kingdom in May 2009, state actors unleashed violence on unsuspecting citizens. The offence was that the Joint Task Force (JTF), composed of army, navy, air force and mobile police troops set up to restore order in the Niger Delta, were attacked by militant groups in that region.  In response, Gbaramatu Kingdom was invaded for several days. Non-combatant individuals were killed in land and air strikes. Houses were set on fire. Government Ekpemupolo (Tompolo), who was the leader of the Movement of the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), one of the militant groups in that region, and the supposed target of that JTF attack, was neither killed nor captured in that attack. He earned amnesty, while an unknown number of innocent citizens were wasted by their government. On December 12, 2015, over 300 civilian Shia Muslims were killed and buried by the Nigerian Army in Zaria, Kaduna State. More of them have been killed during subsequent peaceful protests against the massacre and the wrongful arrests and detentions of some of their members. As I write this, there are reports of a massacre in Oyigbo, in Rivers State. There appears to be a media blackout about it too.

The governments would often first deny the massacres, then as pieces of evidence are presented, they downplay the evil and give excuses. At best, the governments later express regrets and give some paltry financial compensation. The court ordered that 37.6 billion naira be given to the Odi community as compensation for the massacre. The federal government negotiated with some representatives of the Odi people, and they settled to reduce the compensation sum to 15 billion naira, a pay-out which led to further conflict in the community. The eight-billion-naira settlement funds for victims of the Zaki Biam massacre became another source of conflict, and survivors are yet to be compensated.  No arrests have been made for any massacre in Nigeria. No official was sanctioned. The number of the dead remain unknown and surviving family members remain permanently scarred.

Following the 2020 EndSARS protests, the government in different states have set up enfeebled judicial panels of inquiry, as if those contraptions have ever brought about justice in Nigeria. Governments have been killing unarmed citizens and getting away with it, and they will continue until they are stopped. After the recent massacre at the Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos, Nigeria on the 20^th of October 2020, I wondered where the next massacre would be, and what would precipitate it. What new lies will be told? Which dramas will be enacted? When will justice prevail? I am hopeful though, maybe because I realise that even the worst of us are humans, first. Maybe because the Bible announces an end to the reign of evil when Jesus comes again. I definitely concur with Hu Jai, a Chinese activist who said, “I don’t think the power of evil can last forever. It won’t.”