By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
Not many people in Nigeria had ever heard of the nation called Nepal until September 2025.
The landlocked South Asian country suddenly exploded into the consciousness of the world quite suddenly.
The Gen Z uprising in Nepal shook up the world.
The young ones rose up in tumultuous protests when the government ordered a nationwide ban of 26 social media platforms on September 4.
The youths raged against corruption and governmental profligacy such that Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli resigned on September 9.
Then, on September 12, Sushila Karki was appointed the Interim Prime Minister of Nepal.
Some 72 deaths were recorded during the uprising.
After bearing witness to the Nepal rising, let’s do a recall of the Arab Spring when one man changed the history of the world by setting himself on fire.
The Tunisian, Mohammed Bouazizi, was unable to find work and had to make ends meet by selling fruits at a roadside stand.
On December 17, 2010 a municipal inspector confiscated his wares.
An hour later, he doused himself with petrol and set himself on fire.
His death on January 4, 2011 brought together various groups dissatisfied with the existing system in Tunisia: the unemployed, political and human rights activists, trade unionists, students, professors, lawyers, and many others.
Thus began the Tunisian Revolution, not unlike what has just happened in Nepal.
The Tunisian uprising led to the sacking of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on January 14, 2011, thus ending his 23 years in power.
The ousted Ben Ali fled into exile in Saudi Arabia.
Barely 10 days after the sacking of President Ben Ali in Tunisia, protests began in Egypt on January 25, 2011 and ran for 18 days.
Beginning around midnight on 28 January, the Egyptian government attempted to eliminate the nation’s Internet access, in order to inhibit the protesters’ ability to organize through social media, just as it happened in Nepal.
It was all in vain for, on February 11, 2011, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was forced to flee from power, after being in office for about 30 years.
Then the revolution spread to Libya, the land of the then strongman Muammar Gaddafi.
Protests in Libya lasted till October 20, 2011 when Gaddafi met with gruesome death.
The uprisings that swept through the Arab world were given the name: The Arab Spring.
The fear of the Arab Spring spreading to other parts of the world got on the front burner in this day and age of the social media.
Through the Internet, Facebook, X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn, Snapchat etc., landmark protests could easily be organized in the twinkle of an eye.
Nigeria had a spectre of the Arab Spring when the then President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan removed the fuel subsidy on January 1, 2012.
The unpopular New Year “gift” sparked off spontaneous anti-government demonstrations in many Nigerian cities the very next day, that is, on January 2.
It’s not particularly funny that the selfsame fuel subsidy has now been removed in a bizarre manner by the current regime, and some blokes are defending it all, not minding that the fuel price that was 97 Naira back then has skyrocketed to a thousand Naira.
Going further ahead, the government defenders are vehemently stressing that the like of the Nepal uprising should not be brought to bear on Nigeria.
Beyond preachment, Nigeria is in dire straits, and the government needs to live up to its responsibilities to douse the tension in the land.
The normal recourse of using tribe and religion to stem off protests across the country can only work for a while, as happened in the EndSARS protests between October 8 and 20, 2020.
A hungry populace can go the way of Nepal in short seconds, and then it would be too late to stop the uprising.
The coming 2027 presidential election is an acid test for Nigeria because sabotaging the people’s will may be the last stroke to ignite the wrath of Nigerians. The hunger that made Tunisia’s Mohammed Bouazizi to set himself on fire, thus sparking off the Arab Spring, is an everyday Nigerian reality now.
The prayer is that Nigeria may not go the way of thriller writer Frederick Forsyth’s dictum in The Devil’s Alternative, to wit: “Whichever option I choose, people are going to die!”
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu is the author of God of Poetry.
