By Paul Arhewe
There is a limit to which every human being can tolerate oppression from tyrant leaders. Beyond that level of tolerance, the outcome is insurrection which can be deadly and consequentially disastrous. This is the picture in Tunisia where the then sit-tight President, Zine al Abidine Ben Ali, had ruled this North African state for 23 years. The Tunisia’s ‘Jasmine revolution’ is linked to a regime that has oppressed the people for too long, amidst high rate of unemployment, corruption and oppression. The trigger was a 26-year-old university graduate whose offence was that he didn’t take to carrying arms to rob the people after remaining unemployed for years, but chose to settle for a mere fruit and vegetable trade on a cart. Police molested Mohammed Bouazizi despite this humble profession he was engaged in; seized his cart, slapped and roughed him up severally because he does not have licence to back up his trade. Bouazizi filed a complaint with municipal authorities but was rejected. He died some days later after setting himself ablaze at the front of government house.
Other people in other North African countries like Egypt and Algeria had followed the steps of the Tunisians in staging protests to oust their overstayed government. It is the turn of President Hosni Mubarak who has ruled Egypt for close to 30 years. Like his ousted counterpart in Tunisia; the Egyptians are calling for his head. One thing about the Arab world is that they tend to emulate themselves in unison of purpose. The widespread protests against the Dutch cartoonist’s mimicry of Prophet Mohammed and the recent copycat suicides attempts, showcase an overture that we are yet to see the end of these protests, more are likely to come up in other Middle East countries; notably in Jordan, Morocco, Yemen and Turkey. What these tight-sit heads of state have failed to understand is that sovereignty lies with the people. The supreme power to determine what should be or not in a country does not stop at the Presidential office or hallowed chambers of legislature; these arms of government usually are representative of the masses. The three major exponents of social contract theory- Thomas Hobbes, J.J. Rousseau and John Locke- all acknowledge the fact that sovereignty lies with the people.
It is out of need to establish law and order and ensure maximum security that the people had to compromise their liberty to submit some of these freedoms to an authority at the centre for the general good of the public. Though in Nigeria we are more enlightened in this part of the world to allow a tyrant rule for decades with maximum oppression, but the level of unemployment in the country is frightening. Jobless millions of Nigerian youths roaming the streets, and our tertiary institutions are yearly turning out thousands into the labour market with no adequate government plans to accommodate them and secure their future. If this trend should persist for the next five years, the consequence would be worse than what we are presently experiencing in the Arab world. Nothing stops our government from giving soft loans of between N500,000 to one million Naira to aid every fresh graduate start a small scale business after graduation that will be closely monitored by agents of government. World Bank record last year showed that about 40 million Nigerian youths between the ages of 18 and 25 are unemployed. This is outside the teeming number of those who are between 26 and 40 years, many left tertiary institutions for as long as 5 to 10 years and are still jobless. If these jobless Nigerians are added, we may have nothing less than 70 million Nigerian youths that are jobless- probably the highest in the world and about 57% of our total population in Nigeria.
Official figures state that 14% is unemployed out Tunisia’s population of 10.4 million. If revolt by about 1.46 million Tunisian jobless youths and rising cost of living (with GNI per capita at $3,720 in 2010) which is less, compared to that witnessed in our country (with GNI per capita at $2,748 same year) could lead to deadly revolution; who dare say with the level of unemployment and excruciating pain to survive in the country, we are not sitting on a time bomb ready to explode any moment from now? Nigeria is even far behind Ghana and Cameroun who currently have $10,748 and $10,758 per capital income respectively. The time to avert this foreseeable revolt is now.
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