Fukpene Baitei
Department of Humanities, Lagos State University International School, Ojo, Lagos, Nigeria
Email: historicbaitei@gmail.com
&
Godonu, Emmanuel Jesuton
Department of Humanities, Lagos State University International School, Ojo, Lagos, Nigeria
Email: godonuimmanuel@gmail.com
Abstract
All over the world, civil disobedience in the form of strikes or peaceful demonstrations is one of the potent ways citizens register their displeasure over the anti-people policies of government. Nigeria is not an exception. When the citizens in a particular country protest against policies they consider anti-people, it implies that the people have civilly disobeyed the sovereign authority they have chosen. Some scholars have contended that civil disobedience is a panacea for socio-economic and political advancement in any human society, while others have argued that it is more counter-productive than beneficial to society. In most cases, civil disobedience is expected to create an atmosphere for the policy-makers to review whatever parts of the policy that need to be reviewed, but unfortunately, the contrary is always the case in the Nigerian experience since independence. It was discovered that Nigerian leaders treat the citizens as non-relevant immediately after assuming political office, and as such, the people react through the instrumentality of civil disobedience. Thus, this raises the question of how effective civil disobedience (known and regarded as a kind of resistance or revolt against the government) as a potent tool to change the anti-people policies of the government; and how its policies could be of any good to the state and on the long run bring development to it. It is against this backdrop that this paper examines what civil disobedience is and whether it has brought about positive changes in policies in Nigeria since independence. The source of data for this study are secondary sources.
Keywords: Strike, Civil Disobedience, Policy, Leaders, Ant-People Policy, Revolt.
Introduction The expression civil disobedience‘ is an act of deliberate disobedience to laws or policies of a state (government) to achieve an impactful change or cancellation