Point One

Revolutions are never enacted by a handful of fist-wielding hotheads daring a reigning order to its worst ego fight. And when genuinely threatened, neither can revolutions be taken down by a passive citizenry, or at best a motley band of largely self-interested, if not contracted, cheerleaders of the status quo heckling away the threatening revolutionaries. Effective revolutions and counter-actions are deeply engaging exertions: outcomes of keen involvement by any set of people. Semantics can be exasperating, and it has been a sticking point for us here in Nigeria over the last couple of weeks in evaluating the gravity of the intent of the #RevolutionNow protest called by brash activist and presidential candidate in the 2019 general election, Omoyele Sowore. But if we may work with book definition, revolution is “an attempt by a large number of people to change the government of a country, especially by violent action.” (Hornby, Oxford Advance Learners Dictionary,...

They seem to be lurking just about everywhere, stalking hapless quarries. Not that the threat they lately pose is really new, but the frequency of their attacks is ballooning off the handle and their menace creeping ever closer to citizens’ safety zones. Kidnappers are on a rage run across our country and you never know if some of their kind aren’t hovering on the next bend down the road or who their next victim might be. Again, it isn’t that banditry and other forms of security breaches are novel in our national life in Nigeria, but the pervasive impunity of kidnappers appears to have taken the challenge to a distinct peak. Only last weekend, five pastors of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) were abducted on their way to a ministers’ retreat of the church of which Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is himself a pastor. As at when this piece was rested, they were yet to be rescued; and the incident has elicited open lamentations from revered and typically retice...