.@simonkolawole: In an article published on July 7, 2008, “One Day, the People Will Rebel”, I did warn our leaders that Nigerians would take to the streets one day if they would not change their ways.
In another article, “Whatsoever a Man Soweth” — published on May 12, 2019 — I resurrected the warning, adding: “We have sown the wind and we are reaping the whirlwind. The teens and teenagers that we refused to care for yesterday have become our nemesis today.
They are now in our neighbourhood and on the highway, making life unbearable for us. The security system we failed to overhaul and modernise for ages — despite security budgets in billions of dollars — is now unable to protect us.” thecable.ng/what-endsars-m… via @thecableng
I was not saying anything extraordinary. It was just logical. For many years, even when the economy was much better than this, we were perching on a ticking time bomb. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)...
...kept estimating that 70 percent of Nigerians were living on less than $1 a day. It was all statistics to us. Instead of creating jobs, we were busy banning and unbanning okada. The police, FRSC, VIO, LASTMA, tax collectors and task forces were terrorising bus drivers,.. 
...okada riders, traders and other self-employed Nigerians. We thought there would be no consequences. State-society relations were tense. Social unrest was within a sneezing distance.
In other news, ordinary Nigerians struggling for daily bread were regularly reading and watching dramas of stolen billions in the media. We were buying presidential jets and budgeting N37 billion to renovate the National Assembly complex in a country mired in abject poverty.
Hospitals, roads and schools remained in a terrible state. Politicians were partying in Dubai and piling up luxury cars which they showed off on Instagram for our viewing pleasure.
Civil servants and politicians were openly celebrating their children’s graduation from secondary schools in the #UK and the #US. Longsuffering Nigerians were watching all these things. Resentment was inevitable.
.@simonkolawole: One thing for sure: Nigerians are angry and frustrated. Make no mistakes about it: the burning of police stations and the offices of FRSC, VIO and LASTMA was not accidental. These are the uniformed people who torment Nigerians the most on a daily basis.
These are the uniformed people who torment Nigerians the most on a daily basis. They represent the oppressive state. This was the opportunity for the oppressed to get even or hit back, as it were.
Sit down with commercial bus drivers or petty traders and ask them what they go through in the hands of some of these guys daily.
The #EndSARS mayhem gave them an opportunity to vent their anger. Let me state this clearly: arson is wrong and criminal — but let us have that argument some other day.
Also, Nigerians are hungry. Food is increasingly out of reach for many. We cannot glorify looting, but when you see what people were stealing — bread, noodles and garri — you would understand that a major motivation was what they would eat for a few days or weeks.
.@simonkolawole: We should not be surprised. People collect loaves of bread and tiny bags of rice to sell their votes, aware that they may never benefit anything else from the politician again. Nigerians who are comfortable economically cannot understand this mentality.
There are people who wake up every day without an idea of where the next meal would come from. Things are that bad. Stealing foodstuff is, to them, not a sin. thecable.ng/what-endsars-m… via @thecableng
In all, the looting of warehouses storing COVID-19 relief materials tells us that Nigerians are neither deaf nor blind. They were aware of the billions of naira said to have been spent on palliatives. They listened to news regularly.
.@simonkolawole: The fact that Nigerians go about their daily business peacefully — suffering and smiling — does not mean they are ignorant of the fraud or are happy with their condition. Is the message clear to all?
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