–Blank NEWS Online (NIGERIA) –By Austen AKHAGBEME:

In Nigeria today, times are tough, tempers are high, feathers are being ruffled, no thanks to the raging hashtag protest by the rampaging but hitherto ” lazy” Nigeria youth. It has become a test of resolve between predators and victims.

Those whose conscience are smeared with hot iron, who never care a hoot about the lives of their neighbours are beginning to realise the ephemerality of their bloated, brutish resolve versus their sheer humanity afterall.

The boys are angry, obviously. They’re angry over a supposed friend turned foe, a supposed protector turned tormentor. They’re miffed about a society that gives them undulating playing field to express their youthful energy and realise their age long aspirations. They’re ready to make a fight by protest and to face the fight by stamping their feet on the ground for a change.

Those who mistook this for “sponsored public disturb” are either myopic or insincere and obviously oblivious of the times. The menace of SARS and their unleashed terror on society is pitiably palpable to any conscientious lover of freedom and humanity. It is time to shout out; to shout hoarse on the loudest vocal cords. Let the killings stop, the killers punished and the victims adequately compensated.

So far so good. The Inspector General of police and the government of the day are not grandstanding. They seems to be playing ball for now. But on whose behest was the pockets of resistance to the protest orchestrated? What happened in Berger Junction, Abuja was vexatious.

Those who are asking why the protest still persists even after the government has verbally disband the embattled killer unit, SARS, do not understand the sociology of the struggle. Pent up anger and deep seethed animosity must be allowed to be ventilated. You cannot beat a child and still determine when he should stop his crying.

Nobody should read any ulterior motive to the protest. We have a case in point and that is the mistreatment of Nigerians by the ill-fated SARS, the very pivot on which the protest rotates. Any other adduced and assumed reason becomes a matter of conjecture.

Those who are crying fow that the matters may escalate to the breakdown of law and order are suspect. When last in Nigeria have we had such a successful, peaceful, widespread and evenly coordinated protest like this present one?

The youth have come to understand that they can never win against the establishment using methods that are statutorily exclusive to their tormentors. They’re educated enough to know that non violent change is possible.

This is the reason why they’re on the street, armed with nothing but their vocal prowess. We must listen to them. We must do their bidding and earn their trust. If we say they’re the leaders of tomorrow, then let’s allow them to determine their tomorrow.

• Austen AKHAGBEME is a Columnist with Blank NEWS Online