On the Nigerian Spring – #ENDSARS
Weeks into the Nigerian Spring, the cities of Nigeria were illuminated by God’s light. A mixture of panic and desperation hunts a ‘clapped out, distracted regime’. Oppression in Nigeria is on a collision course with the Rock of Ages. God is smiling at his children, and scowling at his children’s oppressors. A generation once remarked to be vapid, and without intelligence has risen to challenge decades of oppression in a collective sense. In one week, it has demonstrated a previously unknown capability to stand up for itself. It was also a time to meet and talk. Boys and girls, without the elders. Reunions, unions, epic proposals, love stories, other stories. The church too, quite shockingly rose to support the nation, unintimidated. Never had the Nigerian Church risen in solidarity with a cause purely social, in such a collective sense. History has no such record. It was at best unbelievable.
The reality was never foreseen by critics or friends of the church. The church has changed. Everything has changed, never to return to the time of the old. The era of docile worship has been revoked and replaced with determined resistance in the face of power. A split had emerged from the behaviour of a section of the country which busied itself with feasting on the resources and lands of everyone who is not its child. God frowned upon the oppressor and when it least expected it, the liberating agency for men showed up. It is God’s gift of courage. To demonstrate anger and tell the truth. Al-Haqa! God knocked the powerful when he could use no power. A season of splits. Between the aristocrats and the deported.
The regime has veered back and forth on which position to take. The courtiers appear beaten up. The formerly oppressed are standing up to a murderous bully. We have heard of the Arab Spring. A season has fallen upon Nigeria. It is the Nigerian Spring. Young people have stopped being shy. It is the beginning of great things to come.
#EndSWAT
Ojo, Aderemi Ibadan, Nigeria.
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