One of the most visible celebrities who participated actively at the ill-fated EndSars protest that shook the entire nation to its foundation weeks ago is the comedian popularly known as Mr. Macaroni. This talented actor and humour merchant whose real name is Debo Adebayo stunned everyone when he put his busy schedules and entire career on hold and threw everything he had into the protest, all in a bid to ensure that the reasons for which the protest was started were realized. He is one personality that the youth have tremendous respect for and they listen to him. He is brilliant. He is intelligent. And for a young and emerging activist, he is also very articulate. And no one could question his passion for the fight against police brutality and bad governance, it was evident for all to see. He joined thousands of other youths to sleep all night on the road right in front of the Lagos House of Assembly if that was what it would take for them to be heard. Little wonder why many now look up to him and see in him a beacon of hope that indeed, there are some outstanding young people with incredible minds out there who can and will do great things in this country if they are allowed to get into positions of leadership.
Last week, Mr. Macaroni had an exclusive interview with City People’s Senior Editor, WALE LAWAL (08037209290). He took his time to explain why the EndSars movement had no identified leaders and why he believes that the leadership structure also took a negative toll on the protest. Excerpts.
Let’s talk about the Lekki shooting. There have been a lot of speculations about the number of lives that were lost at the shooting. There has been conflicting figures, but everyone agrees lives were lost, even the governor said he saw two bodies. For someone who was part of the movement and who may have gotten privileged information that’s not out there in public space, how bad really was the Lekki saga? Is it something we should be this worried about?
There’s a very easy answer to this question. Even if it’s only one life that was lost, we should be worried. We should be angry. We should be sad. Just one life is enough. But of course, more than one life was lost at the shooting. Even if we didn’t see the actual shooting, even if we didn’t see lifeless bodies, at least we saw injured people. We were seeing it live. I cannot say this is the number of people that were killed because I wasn’t there, but we saw live recording of people on the ground, injured, and we saw people that were rushed to the hospital. The governor himself said he saw the number of injured people that were rushed to the hospitals, so for anyone to say maybe nobody died is very disrespectful. For me, we should be worried and we should realize that we’re facing a serious security risk because those that swore to protect the lives of citizens are the ones taking them. How could you send a military team to disperse peaceful protesters? What on earth is your justification? What on earth justifies that because you cannot say there was looting or destruction of properties at that time, it was the next day that all of that started! So, I even wonder what kind of wicked government will even begin to blame the unfortunate incident on peaceful protesters, it is the height of wickedness to say it was because of the protest that people started looting and burning! Were you all blind? Didn’t you all see that there was peace until you sent military officers to kill civilians! And then people got angry and started to do all manner of nonsense! I am not in any way supporting the looting and burning of properties that took place afterwards, no, I’m not and will never support that, but the government must take responsibility. They have failed. They have shown the height of irresponsibility in them and they have shown that they do not care. They have shown a total lack of value to human lives and the government has been too insensitive, to say the least.
Do you also agree that the protest would’ve been better organized and much more effective if there was a clear leadership structure that coordinated things from the top?
Yes, in all honesty, yes. I know what lack of leadership can do in any movement or lack of organization. I’ve occupied leadership positions all my life and I know what specific coordination or arrangement can do. But you see, we cannot blame ourselves for this one because it was unplanned. It was spontaneous. The whole thing started from outside Lagos and before you knew what was happening, it started springing up in different parts of the country because people were like, are we just going to sit back and do nothing about this injustice? And people started rising up and lending their voices. So, for some people to now come up and say it’s ABCD and E that will now be in charge of the movement will begin to discredit the entire movement because there’s already high level of distrust in the country and among ourselves. We have seen cases in the past where a protest comes up and the next day you hear they have cornered them and the protest is called off but the problem will not be solved. So, I guess that’s why many were saying we don’t want anybody to say they’re our leaders o, because tomorrow now they will corner them, give them money and then they will tell us everything is over, go back to your house and then we will still be dealing with the same problem. And of course, going forward we have learnt our lessons. For instance, I was always at Alausa, and if not because to an extent, there were still people who listened if you say one or two things because by virtue of the fact that it’s this person that said it, let’s just listen. For instance, they blocked a certain road and you say, ah, you cannot block all these roads, you have to leave his one open so that if there’s an emergency or something like that. So, you would always need people to be on ground to coordinate things. But like I said, we have learnt and will organize ourselves better next time. One thing we have shown to the government with this one is that if these people come together and they lend their voices together in an organized manner, you should be scared.
Many are expecting that another wave of protest may spring up soon because the government has not shown honesty, they have not shown sincerity in their dealings with the youths. Some of the protesters have had their accounts frozen, some of them have been hounded by security agencies, what do you think is the mood of the youth as we speak seeing how insincere the government has been?
I can’t say people are planning protest somewhere or not, but clearly, everyone is frustrated. The government has succeeded in frustrating Nigerian youths and they are not even doing anything to correct the situation. I’ve never seen any government as insensitive as this government. This government is extremely insensitive. There are things that are happening and you’re not even showing any compassion. You hear representatives of government and you listen to the tone with which they speak, then you’ll realize we are in a big mess. So, if the government does not carefully address this issue, they will have a lot of problems on their hands. Right now, there’s a lot going on in the country. Farmers were slaughtered in Bornu, that is enough to worry any government. Now, you’re having that kind of case on your hands and you’re still frustrating your youth, knowing full well your youth are unemployed, knowing full well they’re unable to maximize their potentials, so you should know that they are very itchy. One wrong move and everybody’s anger explodes. So, my prayer to them is that you just have to do better. You just have to know that the youths in this country have had enough and that at any time should they feel scared of losing their lives, knowing full well the government has failed them, they will rather fight back than just sitting down there and waiting to be slaughtered. My prayer to the government is that they need to wake up to their responsibilities. They’re sleeping! They must wake up from their slumber! They’re sleeping intentionally. If they’re not sleeping intentionally, the government isn’t rocket science. Leadership isn’t rocket science. And why is leadership not rocket science? Because it is all about placing the people first. If you place the people first, trust me it won’t be rocket science to you. That is when you will know what to do at all times and you will know that the betterment and progress of your people come first.
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