The government’s response to the protests have been of suspicion… Promises have been made, but these are things we have heard on numerous other occasions. Much talk, some movement, but little action.

It is currently a sad time to be a Nigerian citizen. There have never been times more bloody, or distressing or uncertain than these sad times; at least not since the unfortunate days of military rule. Slowly but surely the realization has come to hit us that we are indeed at war and decades of mismanaging the commonwealth have come back to haunt us big time.

It is the season of protests.

And why shouldn’t it be? Since the Boko Haram insurgency began effectively in 2006, thousands of Nigerians have been needlessly slaughtered, bombed, matcheted or gunned down in countless attacks that has left the North East region impoverished and the general populace paralysed by fear. There is no day that passes now without a fresh assault and no target considered too soft for these monsters. Church goers in Madalla have been targeted with equal ferocity as have market women in Borno and Plateau states. School children have been rounded up and gored to death in Barkin Yadi and bombings in a busy car park in the nation’s capital- twice in the same vicinity- have left a devastating trail of carnage and destruction.

But the recent abduction of over 250 school girls from a federal government college in Chibok, Borno state has become the force that tipped the scale and woke the general populace from an induced stupor, one that descended on the land as a mechanism of coping with all the madness. Beginning with a simple request in the form of a hashtag, the #BringBackOurGirls campaign has taken up a life of its own, forcing pressure on the government to do the needful and commanding the attention of the international community.

A series of protests, beginning in Abuja and ballooning into a national movement have sustained the pressure and does not appear to be relenting, not until every one of those girls is brought back home. Their only crime was their desire to be educated.

But the Chibok protesters are not the only ones on the street these days. Yesterday, students of the Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife took to the streets and blocked the strategic Ife-Ibadan expressway. Their grievance was the unjustifiable 322percent hike in tuition fees. Not even soldiers from a presidential convoy could stop them from carrying out their rights.

Elsewhere, the Nigerian Union of Teachers shut down schools in solidarity with the kidnapped girls. Polytechnic students have tired of staging protests of their own, their schools have remained shut for over 6 months now due to a strike action by the lectures and supervising minister for education appears more interested in the 2015 elections.

Meanwhile the bombs keep going off and the security operatives stand by helplessly, unable to anticipate, prevent or even protect territories that are potential targets. According to National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), 1000 Nigerians have been killed between January and March in 3 states in the North East.

Soldiers attached to the 7 Division of the Nigerian Army recently mutinied against their high command, protesting the death of some of their colleagues in a Boko Haram ambush. Confusion everywhere.

The government’s response to the protests have been of suspicion, even going as far as dispatching security details to stop some of the gatherings. Promises have been made, but these are things we have heard on numerous other occasions. Much talk, some movement, but little action.

When the people have had enough, no amount of force can stop the push back and there will be consequences. Can the government hear the people cry?