Tuface Protest : Dead on Arrival

By Joseph Edgar…My very good friend and brother, Nsikan, gave me the title of this piece and said, ‘bro, you can go ahead and use it’. That is just the level of disgust that a cross section of Nigerians feel, following the early Sunday morning announcement by Tuface that he was canceling the protest due to, according to him, the threat of loss of lives.

In a short video posted online, Tuface with bloodshot eyes and scraggy beards talked about the emptyinness of the protest, of how it would lead to the loss of lives. He went on to further state that he was of the firm opinion that his point has been made with the whole episode and as such there was no need to further aggravate people.

Well, I thank him for wasting our time. I really thank him for this wanton surge into a vacuous hole of contempt. Or, how else are we going to explain this level of cowardice. You see sacrifices have to be made if anything in life is to be achieved. If we continue to fall on these kinds of lame excuses not to stand up for our rights what would we achieve as a people and what kind of legacy will we be leaving for our children.

Protests are a legitimate part of democracy as can be seen with what is happening in the Americas today. It is not Tuface’s job to stop the loss of lives, it is the job of the police. The police did a good job to discover the threat and the possible hijack of the whole thing. They should have gone a step further working with the organizers to secure the venue of the protest, fish out trouble makers and ensure that lives and property were secured during the protest.

What this means is that we are silencing a very critical part of democracy with this idea of possible loss of lives, for which protest will ever come without a possible threat to lives? This is the excuse we are going to be using now to avoid a legitimate cry for the people.

With the way our democracy is going, our loss of faith in the judiciary and the National Assembly serving as a check on the Executive and now with this Tuface debacle what hope is there for the common man?

Tuface as they say on the street, ‘you no try’ . I respect you too much for this thing wey you do. Well the issues that pushed for the protest are still there with us and the voice of the masses have been muzzled by the fear of ‘loss of lives’. We continue to suffer while smiling as the late great musician, Fela, said. He would have gone ahead with the protest, I tell you.

 

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