The Ripple Effects of North African Arab Political Revolutions: Any Lesson for Nigeria?

Eke-Dike Chigozie Ọzọegede
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The term ‘Ripple’ implies, in the case of human society, the movement of a human act passing effectively through the audience. And we have known revolution to be, mathematically, the normalizing of X Area by the cancellation of odd numbers to secure expected or desirable even numbers, and philosophically, within a political sensorium, the radical invalidation of undemocratic regime in order to have a democratic government established.

Naturally, every human act, individual or group, has ripple effect, which can be vicious or virtuous to its audience, and political revolutions and wars are human acts. Even the Acts of God in human history has ripple effects from one generation to another.

However, here we investigate the ripple effects of North African Arab Political Revolutions with the Rabi objective to draw a lesson for Nigeria because there is a lesson for Nigeria, since she (Nigeria) is not better than, for example, Egypt, Tunisia and Libya under Gaddafi.

The revolution, which started in February 2011 in Egypt, rippled effectively into Tunisia and from Tunisia it rippled to its bloody pinnacle into Libya. Why? We must note here the fact that, the running sea of human history always pushes identical wave and tide in ripple-effect to sovereign political existents with parallelism (similarity) of political culture; the citizens of these three Arab countries shared similar political experience under which they longed for liberation from the jaws of undemocratic rules and rulers, and Egyptians sparked off revolution for their own liberation. Tunisians, in ripple effect, got the revolutionary excitement. The effects rippled into Libya, and Libyans, experiencing more of dictatorship than the others, got the blazing extremism of the ripple effects of the revolutions. We now ask; which country is the next recipient of the ripple-effect of Arab revolutions? Therefore, I wish using Libya as container-case-study to create a lesson for Nigeria of impotent independence.

In Libya the ripple effects of the revolutions attracted the power blocks of the known world, which rallied to the side of the civilians and the democratic rebels, and NATO was the world international law enforcement agent against Gaddafi, for the revolution became totally armed due to Gaddafi’s mafia stubbornness. The well armed revolution left thousands of Libyans dead with Gaddafi the lion-face of Libya in his own bowl of blood.

Gaddafi seized power in a bloodless coup at the age of 27 in 1969 removing from power king Idris and dictated to Libyans for 42 years, for he abandoned the Constitution of Libya as soon as he seized power and practically ruled by sentiment and whim (dictatorship). A city without Constitution (on the same podium with a city of Lootocracy; with corrupt and indifferent rulers, though with constitution) is a city of dictators. On this basis, what is the difference between the citizens of Nigeria and the citizens of Libya under Gaddafi? This is a question to all in this country where the citizens have become intimidated into the passageway of fear and trembling, so that they now wake up every morning expecting, yet no messiah to illegalize all illegalities, legalize all legalities and feed them with justice and fairness in this country.

Under Gaddafi Libyans lived in fear of one another, for Gaddafi instituted a network of intimidation and control by informants over the Libyans’ freedom of expression, thought, conscience and religion: no Libyan who wishes himself good dared expressed his thought, conscience and religion against the sentiment and the whim of Gaddafi who polarized the government of Libya between his family and his relations. The graves of the members of Libyan political forums not warranted by Gaddafi and of those who dared criticized his government engrave enough information of what citizenship under Gaddafi meant, and the protesters killed in the early days of the 2011 revolution by Gaddafi military men refreshed the gravity of Gaddafi’s dictatorship, therefore, no need making a long list of the fury of Gaddafi who, at last, summarized his dictatorship by going to war against his own people: those he denied civil liberty he laid waste by dragging them into bloody armed conflict, and the hungry mouth of Justice against Gaddafi was well fed in Sirte, Gaddafi’s nativity.

Lesson for Nigeria
I entertain no interest in making any accommodation for cloudy statements: let us face the fact since the most effective solution is always based on knowledge of facts, and in lack of this knowledge we stand face to face with the doom of ignorance.

Nigeria, with key reference to her leaders, must learn from the Arab political revolutions that, at a period in the accumulation of Time and Memory, the lion must become old and then the gazelles will go to him in revenge for all their members he devoured. The federal executives and the governors in this Nigeria of our odd political experience should recognize the very fact that, the very law of nature that governs running water is the very law that governs being in Time and Memory: everything here moves in changes and fluctuations, for example, at a period in the accumulation of Time and Memory King David fled from his son Absalom. In Nigeria, self-abandoned rulers glory in spectacles of vanity while the masses suffer and decay under their democratic tyranny (masked tyranny) and Lootocracy. But history does come with days when news broadcast will say “the mighty have fallen”: the day of deliverance and wiping out of tears. Had Gaddafi known that some days are for the man who sits on power and a day is for the citizens who owns the power, he would not had passed Libyans through the fires of tyranny and would not have fallen in revolutionary battle.

Do not expect me to chart examples of agonies and woes in Nigeria that shares similarity with some of the reasons for Arab revolutions; similarities which are magnetic to the Arab revolutionary ripple effects. This is because, for example, the revolution-like-militancy of the Niger Delta militants, the suicide horror of Boko Haram, and the unarmed tumultuous movement of Uwazurike for the Actualisation of Biafra the Beautiful seem to point five fingers to Nigeria as a failed state in all political songs of degrees. But we must note that political revolution is apparently impossible in Nigeria, since she (Nigeria) is constituted of multi ethnic communities antagonistic and ethnophobially suspicious of one another.

However, your car turns to where you guide your wheel. Political philosophy revolves round the human actions and it is human actions that mother the fate of nations and rulers, nothing else. We Nigerians should therefore learn from concrete history. We all are fully aware that, this country is sitting on volcanic powder only waiting for a messiah, an enthusiast, a rebel who rebels for justice or even a mad person to boom the cannon, and then the booms and dooms of revolution will follow.

I severely pray for Nigeria as I severely sorry for this country fat with symptoms of revolution.