A Country And It’s Canisters Of Teargas -By Kene Obiezu

For Nigeria’s security personnel, is the new oxygen. Just that this oxygen is not free. It is weaponized against people in Nigeria, people bold enough to protest against whatever it is they are protesting against.

First, it was those who accompanied Nasir el-Rufai, the former governor of Kaduna State, to answer summons by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). After their principal went into a closed-door interrogation with personnel of the commission, they were greeted with canisters of tear gas.

It also fell to the turn of another set of protesters, these ones far more noble, to feel the fury of the noxious fumes. They were pushing for changes to Nigeria’s electoral laws. When their protests berthed at the shores of the National Assembly, the protesters were to discover in a hard way that their instructions had already been left that they were to be resisted. The protesters, as has become the norm since the 10th National Assembly came to power, had another axe to grind.

To put it in plain terms, it is dangerous to protest in Nigeria, and this is an irony given that the right to protest is arguably democracy’s boldest insignia and Nigeria is supposed to be a democracy. However, it has been the chilling experience of those who have ever summoned the courage to go out and protest over one thing or the other that protests can quickly turn to purges, some of them fatal.

The Lekki toll gate massacre of 2020 comes to mind as the killings that accompanied the End Bad Governance protests of 2025.

Democracy is driven by protests. In a country that hoists democracy as the hallmark of its existence and co-existence, what is it with this egregious eagerness to disperse protesters, dispel protests, and distribute fear? Why are those who straddle Nigeria’s corridors of power deathly afraid of protests in a country where every defect screams out in protest and for protest?

Whenever protesters pile out into the streets, the executive flashes fangs that often prove fatal. The legislature, which should make and protect laws that propound and propel protests, shockingly shows no reservations in quelling these protests. One suspects that the judiciary would get into the act too were its remit not tightly circumscribed to judicial decisions, which nevertheless often go on to suppress protests.

Protests are a critical part of political engagement and participation. Democracy dies in darkness and wastes away on whispers. When people are uncomfortable and unsettled by the excesses of state actors, they should be able to lift their bullhorns to their lips and shout down the rooftops until their grievances are speedily and deftly addressed. They should not be pummeled for protesting. Death or the deployment of noxious substances should not be the response to protests at any time or place.

Those who protest who should be all citizens under democracy should also be aware of their responsibility to democratize their protests for those protests to merit the protection offered by democracy. The protest democracy recognizes and protects are peaceful protests that demand the dividends of democracy. This means that there is no space for paid protests or professional protesters, which unfortunately have become all too common in Nigeria.

Nigeria’s security agents need to be re-educated and re-sensitized on how to engage with protesters. They should be trained to refrain from using lethal force on protesters no matter the provocation. They should be trained to become accustomed to other less invasive measures of crowd control.

Crucially, those who have harmed protesters in the past cannot be allowed to continue in service. They are traitors and cowards.

Nigerians have a right to protest. Public officers who go all out to suppress these protests have no business being in office.

Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com