By PETER ANOSIKE

As a rubber tapper at Osse River Rubber Estate (OSSE), Benin City, some years back, any time we went to the plantation to tap, our barely educated head man, in the person of Uko would admonish us to , “Tap and watch weather” which in today’s world literally mean, whatever you are doing always watch the trend.

But that is the lesson that our highly educated and Harvard certified business, political and religious leaders have refused to learn, the more reason why they are always getting their fingers burnt.

These leaders always want to believe that the society is static and humanity would always remain the same.

That is why they refuse to accept change and feel that they would keep on underestimating the masses and nothing would happen, forgetting that Lamborghini was founded as a result of the revenge of a tractor owner who was insulted by Enzo Ferrari, the founder of Ferrari.

Many business leaders who refused changed have paid dearly for it.

Examples: Nokia rejected Android and went under.

Yahoo rejected Google and paid dearly.

Kodak turned down digital cameras and went into extinction.

Blockbuster rejected Netflix and went under.

Today, Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a sad man because he could not comprehend the reason why Nigerian masses should embark on a nationwide #End Bad Governance Protest after his “wide consultations” with all the famed opinion moulders in the country.

The one reason for this is because Tinubu and his handlers are still stuck in the old order, the more reason why they did not know that a mental revolution has been going on in the country for some time now.

As somebody who has been in the labour movement in the last two decades, been a Labour Correspondent of the Sun newspaper, I know that in the past, protest against unpopular government policies were planned and carried out by Labour unions in conjunction with civil society organizations (LASCO), mostly based in Lagos. The Civil Society organizations were mainly from the anti-military, pro-democracy and human rights advocacy groups of the 80s and 1990s who got their tutelage in the activism school of Gani Fawehinmi, Beko Ransome Kuti, Wole Soyinka, Olisa Agbakoba and the rest.

But today, most of protest icons are either dead or are eating with the current government and as such are observing good table manners, thereby cannot afford to bite the finger that is feeding them by protesting against its anti-human policies.

On the other hand, the youths who are powering the #EndBadGovernance protest did not know the old brigade or regard them as part of the problems with Nigeria and as such did not involve them in the planning and execution of the protest. This irrelevant group who did not know the minutes of the protest meeting was among those that Tinubu consulted to help to stop the protest from taking place. That was his first mistake.

In the north, a social media engineered discentering, which simply means a shift from an established center or focus is gradually going on. The youths are gradually waking up and rebelling against the cultural, political and social power of the clerics which they now believed have held them in mental and physical captivity over the years.

Northern clerical establishment, known as the Ulama, as Farooq Kperogi rightly put it,“ had been constituted in the region’s moral imagination as the apotheosis of probity and the unquestioned source of moral and political guidance. They have used this power, this priceless symbolic capital, to keep the masses perpetually in a state of suspended animation. They have programmed northern Nigerian masses to not resist, protest, rebel, much less revolt, against bad governance. They socialized them into accepting their economic suffering with equanimity. The only thing the clerical elites have conditioned the masses to be implacably roused and animated over is real or perceived slight against religion.”

That was another group that Tinubu banked on to stop the protest, with the mindset that the society remains the same but not realizing that nobody was home. In fact there has been a cultural seismic shift. Northern youths have woken up and moved on.

It is this establishment that decides who wins election in the north and never the competence of the politicians. Once a politician is on their good book, merit or performance does not matter. It is this establishment that packaged the famous Buhari’s 12 million votes that keep on voting every four years.

I strongly feel that the liberation from the shackles of the clerical establishment is a wake-up call to the politicians in the north since the days of theological rationalization of non-performance or colossal failure in government would now be a thing of the past.

The youths demonstrated their liberation by carrying the protest to Buhari’s door steps in Daura, an act which would have been considered as harakiri in the days of yore.

The youths would from henceforth begin to hold their leaders accountable, instead of believing that their sins are the reason why things are not going well in their region.

Another take away from the liberation is that sooner than later, competence and merit instead of tribe and religion would begin to determine who wins election in the north.

So, the nationwide protest would have being avoided if Bola Tinubu and his handlers had studied the trend and realize that those he was holding meetings with had no bearing or any influence on the organizers of the protest and engage the youths directly.

Furthermore, if Tinubu had before August 1, engaged the youths directly, spoke the language that would resonate with them, reduce the high cost of petrol and electricity and reduce the high cost of transportation by rolling out the much talked about CNG buses, which are the main causes of hardship in the country, the #Endbadgovernance protest would not have held in the first place.

•Anosike is the Executive Director of Picadelly Consulting and a world bestselling author.

Update news