History is unfolding before our very eyes. No. The situation is much more than that. History has chosen us to be its stage performers. Times are hard, no doubt. There is no hope things will get any better as the political class is having everything where it wants it. Dreams have been shattered. Hopes are being dashed. The dignity of men, the honour of women and the innocence of children have been mercilessly, cruelly and callously dragged into the mud and completely destroyed.
There is hunger in the land. The people are in penury. Evidence of poverty all over. Life has been reduced to the subsistence level. Nay, the majority of the people cannot cater for their basic needs. And in states like Katsina, Sokoto and Zamfara, life has been reduced to nothing. Mass killings occur everyday so much so that the news of such incidents are no longer news. They simply go as ‘one of those things’.
Surely, the masses have been pushed to the wall, more than any other time in our history. Thankfully, they are not taking it in this time around.The ongoing protest is the wisest and bravest thing the Nigerian masses have ever done. Today is a Red Letter Day. It is a watershed and a milestone. For the first time in history, the Nigerian proletariat are showing themselves. The line has been drawn, this time around not between the North and the South; Muslims and Christians or the various ethnic nationalities that made up the country.
This is the beginning of the end. Class consciousness has been ignited. The proletariat are on the streets while the bourgeoisie are in hiding trying to suppress the voice of the people, which is the voice of God, through the instrumentalities of security forces that epitomise the state superstructure. This after the infrastructure, in the form of religious clerics, failed to dissuade the people from taking positive action against mismanagement and bad governance.
As I walk down the streets of Kano this morning I am overwhelmed with joy. The people are speaking. They have had it enough and are not ready to take it any longer. The class struggle has begun. And the message has been sent loud and clear. We will on our part keep the flames burning by espousing the appropriate ideology and formulating the necessary framework.
The Nigerian masses have woken up from their slumber. The old order will soon give way to the new. Better death with honour than life under a system that has no regard for our humanity.
