By Fr. Godswill Agbagwa : Founder, Centre for Social Awareness, Advocacy and Ethics (CSAAE)
The right to protest is a natural right. It is also a constitutional right in Nigeria. It is the right to free speech.
Trying to stop a protest in any way is an abuse of the right to free speech. A sincere government does not gag free speech. Rather, it allows the people to speak freely while it listens.
Leaders committed to the common good foster the exercise of free speech because it allows them to hear from the led.
Protest is a feedback mechanism that every good leader must cherish. But bad leaders would do anything to stop protests.
They organize counter protests to stop peaceful protests. They mobilize hoodlums and touts to hijack peaceful protests and cause violence just to have a reason to unleash soldiers on the peaceful masses.
Bad leaders will do anything to stop protests because they are afraid to hear from the led. They only want to hear praise singing from sycophants. They hate criticism. They hate complaints. They want us to talk about the few good roads they have fixed with our money. But they don’t want us to talk about the many bad roads they have failed to fix.
They want us to celebrate them for using our money to fix a few primary schools and healthcare centres. But they don’t want us to talk about the many dilapidated primary schools and healthcare centres.
Bad leaders surround themselves with sycophants that massage their demonic egos. They would do anything to silence criticism. They live in the city and never visit the villages.
So, how would they feel our pains- the pain of driving on horrible rural roads, going all day without electricity and praying not to get sick because there are no good hospitals.
Bad leaders are bad leaders. We must tell them how bad they are. Peaceful protest is a an ethical way to do so.