OPINION: Beyond EndSARS Protests | By Isah Bala

Like a wounded lion that has no reservation in fighting for survival, the youths of Nigeria have been pushed to the limit and the long awaiting opportunity finally presents itself to roar and demand for the ideal things to be done. Thousands of the people who protest on daily basis have actually been treated so bad by the bad system that they no longer fear of death after all the poor state of living was no better than death.

The hope and trust in the government is long lost, the people had seen more than enough rhetorics, more than enough appeal committees set up that ended up taking fat allowances without result. 

The SARS brutality has only provided the long awaiting platform for people to vent their anger, to tell the government they've failed them in all fronts, to tell the government the change mantra they rode to the seat of power has only resorted in more hardship with exorbitant and skyrocketed basic necessities of life. 

I've read beautiful piece on several fora and submissions of anti SARS protest, many of them narrowed the protest to be regional, religion and ethnic based. This I must say is disappointing, the rate at which people justify anomalies in the name of speaking in favour of 'our own' that has continued to retard us is heart-wrenching. 

Like Martin Luther King Jr of the blessed memory holds,  “There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November," that time is surely now!

Those in the corridors of power who view the protest as a way of spilling their rice; the ongoing protest is far from their narrowed view, it's far beyond the ENDSARS brutality, it's a show of long deprivation and frustration occasioned by failed system. 

I do not buy into the bargain of maintaining constant mum while we are being tossed around by corrupt system that've deprived us basic essentials of life. For how long I ask?The people are tired of singing consolation songs of patriotism without basic necessities of life. 

In a country where the gap between the rich and the poor is too wide, in a country where children of politicians waste hundreds of thousands on daily basis on inanities while the common man toil the day without even crumbs to eat, then you expect nothing from the people than to revolt when the opportunity presents itself like this. 

The politician and those at the corridors of power may not know the pains of the common Nigerians, after all they still drink and eat fat from the coffers of our treasury, they still take home millions of naira every month, they still buy millions of properties as vanity investments, they still spend millions of naira on 'slay queens'. No! They can't feel our pains and the gibberish coming from them against the ongoing protests is long expected. 

I felt cold and gave up the day I realized how a sitting Governor spend millions of naira on 'runs girls' just to have access to their bodies while his subjects cry for their rights in vain. 

You don't expect the people to remain the same! Despite the change mantra which this present administration rode to the seat of power, we've only managed to metamorphose from bad to worse, people can no longer afford food to survive the daily hardship in Nigeria, prices of foodstuff skyrocketed more than 100 percent. After five years we are still told the past administrations are the cause of our woes, without doing anything different ? 

We've been pushed into a deep and long lasting liquidity trap. The entire government activities appear to glorify morbid attachment and patronage of mediocrity and utter malfeasance.

Our greatest undoing is that we have within our reach everything it takes to be transformed into the most industrialized country in Africa, but unfortunately bad leadership continued to hold us back.

China suddenly become our saving ground while we trade our sovereignty in exhcnage of fat loans that ended up on the fat belly of proficient scavengers. Where is the hope for people to hold on to? And you expect the people to keep mum? How long?

Nigerians youths have realized that the power of the people is stronger than the people in power, we've realized we can cause change to happen, and sooner than later, the older generation that have held us down with their visionless government will be kicked out of the corridors of power. 

The wounds may be healed but the scars in the fight for an ideal state may never be healed, it reminds the compatriots of the priceless sacrifice for a better Nigeria. 

Isah Bala...