Yahaya Bello’s #EndSARS comments will make you question government’s will towards positive change

It is 20 days since the #EndSARS protests started and, Nigerian politicians who have relatively stayed quiet more days than a deafening silence, are now speaking up now that the protest ‘has been hijacked’ and lives have been lost across the country. A popular one, the governor of KogiYahaya Adoza Bello, was interviewed today by Channels TV about the #EndSARS movement and his response didn’t do much to hit the nail on the head.

In plain terms, the governor’s response only seemed to trivialise the #EndSARS movement as he simply dismissed the protests as a political scheme that aimed at taking advantage of the emotions of Nigerian youth.

To Yahaya, everything else asides irresponsible leadership were the reasons things got out of hand – Covid-19 was at fault, political tampering was at fault, and even the absence of leadership for the #EndSARS movement was at fault.

The youngest Nigerian governor was indeed fired up to dismiss the #EndSARS movement but failed to mention how irresponsibility has made the government avoid disciplining men of the police force who have – years before now – being accused of impunity and extra-judicial killings. He also politically avoided explaining why the government will promise police reforms and instead go on to allow police officers get away with impunity.

The motivation to the #EndSARS movement in his opinion was not the countless lives and properties lost at the hands of the Federal Anti-robbery Squad (FSARS), but the work of imaginary political puppeteers, who are apparently using Nigerian youth to push their political agenda for 2023.

When asked about how the government scrapped SARS and quickly replaced it with SWAT, he mentioned that the #EndSARS movement was wrong in the first place.

“A lot is wrong with that. You see, let me tell you, you asked for #EndSARS, and remember not everybody believes in ending SARS. And if you say the SARS is wrong or have been doing one thing wrong or the other, the best way to have agitated was to ask for the reform of the total security overall, the security architecture.” He stated.

He further explained that the bad eggs in the military or the bad eggs in the media are not prerequisite to scrapping the army or the media entirely, which in all honesty, in this #EndSARS regard, just seems unrelated.

The protests did not demand scrapping the entire police force, it demanded ending a notoriously corrupt unit of the police force, one which even the government has failed to put in check.

And when you consider that the governor showed very little ingenuity in solving the issue at hand, and a general lack of empathy and understanding of the protest as a whole, you begin to wonder what is motivating his opinion. He, like most officials who have spoken about the movement, dissected the movement from the point of a selfish government official looking to protect his/her interest.

It goes without saying that Nigerians on Twitter were not too pleased with his comments. Belittling the people’s outrage towards a police unit that has caused so much misery in the country to a mere political strategy is not only insulting but also infuriating.

In all, the governor’s response did nothing but reiterate a point which Sanwo Olu’s interviews and the President’s address made clear, and that is the fact that the government at this point is still unwilling to take responsibility for the mess it created.

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