Sometimes, It Is Tortuous To Aggregate How To Feel Towards Our Grasp Of Our political Problems And Their Possible Solutions
ONLY a few months ago, the military, apparently feeling left out in the allocation of values processes in some African countries, ousted those countries’ civilian leaders. Many people celebrated this. Unknown to them, or forgetting that it was the same experience from the 1970s, till around the late 1990s when military dictatorship slowly became unfashionable across Africa. But, in 2023/2024, people celebrated military intervention in politics; the same thing they tried decades ago, and it turned out disastrous. Today, the last has not been heard of what has become of that celebration.
I have seen many people commending the violence in Kenya. If I’m to say just one thing, then I would say, “look at Syria.” The whole country has been destroyed. In Southeast Nigeria, when UGM violence began, people saw them as their saviour – at least to balance state terror, they thought.
As we speak today, has Syria and Syrians felt better as a result of their internal conflict and violent protest? How has Southeast become better? How then would Kenya become better on account of violent protest?
I understand that some people just don’t like the idea of government. Yes. There are people who are anarchists and detest government authority. Some also have this burning desire to upturn the table so that they can become the new ruling class. There are those who are genuinely angered and eager to get things right.
Whatever the case may be, development and progress can not be attained by violence. For now, it is only Rwanda that has recovered from a state-wide internal violence throughout Africa, and the recovery has no basis in that country’s history of genocidal violence.
In the end, we really need to do better with the kind of things some of us see as the way out or solution, for whatever reason. The worst government in this world would still be better than the most good-intentioned power usurper – be that a warlord or the masses.
Let it be clear that anybody involved in violence against the State is not “taking back his country,” he instead, is taking his country back.
Ebuka Onyekwelu
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