I got a disturbing call yesterday from home. I couldn’t bring myself to reckon with the level parents and relatives have internalised the idea of safety. They try as much as possible to monitor, follow and poke some curious nose into the affairs of those they hold so dear.
My mum was desperate about knowing if I was still in Ondo State, but I don’t share nor inform people of my weird travels, including the imminent ones. I don’t think she is that strange to this development. That doesn’t still deprive her of the fear she had so much had. She wanted to know if I wasn’t already with (human rights activist, Omoyele) Sowore, or possibly some revolutionary comrades in some territories, mobilising for a massive agitation for a working democracy in Nigeria.
I kept mute at first. My brain went blank. I could not say “yes” or “no,” not until she claimed the men of the Nigeria Police had been mandated to shoot any peaceful protesters on Saturday, June 12, 2021. “A war is to happen in Ondo State and I have ordered for enough foodstuffs. I would be sending you money to recoup,” She said.
The money aspect sounds so nice. I prayed to God just a day before, seeking some manna from heaven. It was as well sure to some extent, that I might not have the necessary courage to stay put the next day. I have to be on the streets, waxing a few lyrics of gyrational albums. The oppressors must be intimidated!
I got home around 9:00 pm, met my landlord on his simply-made armchair. It was unusual of him to put his phone very close to his mouth, he was more of sermonising to his daughter who studies outside the state about the reasons why she needed to stay at home. In the sanctimony of the ululations laid peacefully my interest. I was willing to digest the thematic preoccupation of the whole thing, while also making the best of fun out of the drama. He conclusively counselled his girl to stay put, pray and read for her coming examination. He didn’t drop the call without promising a tireless struggle for her school fee.
I entered my room at the drop of the call, mobilised my gentle flesh to the bed. I never knew when I drifted towards my own Hades, slept off into the dead. I have grown to love terrific dreams, especially ones tallying with aggressor Pharaohs, coming with their daggers, dogs, and guns. I don’t run! I fight the dogs, guns, and daggers at a time. That night’s dream was not a good one. I dreamt of suffering another police brutality (being battered, manhandled, and detained). I dreamt that God wouldn’t be there to save me.
I saw myself standing before a scary Magistrate, with bushy hair and all sorts. Maybe deformed was my leg, my soul eaten by the flying birds of heaven. I could not breathe again, as my heart was borne into a burden of a casket. I needed to cry!
Not all these stopped me from waking up as early as planned, an admirer of the Revolutionary movement earlier promised to join me to Akure from AAUA (Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State). He is sturdy, courageous, and indefatigable, not the cacophony of supposedly discerning minds can stop the shelter of Freedom.
We got into the same vehicle with a generation of Nigerians who are in bed with their oppressors. The generation I am talking about are not just bereft of the realities but are of a conviction that is in love with their chains. No wonder Akure was as lifeless as the graveyard; the streets were as dead as the smelling pits around, including the shops that were shut out of economic activity. We trudged on and landed at our point of convergence.
Our first port of call was Cathedral Junction in Akure, there I met a few revolutionary minds, whose disposition regarding the issue of a brain-dead President, whose little or no cognitive ability to oversee the affairs of a populous state, has landed Nigeria in its present state, could be blunt.
The movement from there to Post Office Junction was peaceful, it was augmented by so many other reactionary forces like Students For Liberty, unemployed youths, artisans and the elderly promised unpaid stipends in their old age.
The police surfaced at this point, barricaded peaceful protesters. The courageous Nigerian people appeared to have mustered a stride in their organisation, they transcended the machinations of the Nigeria Police and marched through the whole of Akure. It is worthy of special note that nobody was attacked.
The #BuhariMustGo protest is seen as a reactionary mechanism under which the Nigerian youths can mobilise to take back their future. This was apart from the fact that the state-sponsored rumour of possible violence and replication of the Lekki massacre, has not held water today.
Conclusively, I want to conclude on the strength of my earlier position, that the tele-guided speech delivered by analogue President Muhammadu Buhari today is nothing but fictitious. Most achievements incoherently reeled out on national television are realities that can never be seen. They are simply believable lies devised to sabotage justice for a people who are ready to address their grievances peacefully.
I however state that the Nigerian government has not totally failed by not being able to confine or cow Nigerians. We now have a generation of Nigerians aware of their rights.
A people united cannot be defeated!
In solidarity
Tunde Akingbondere
