By Festus Akanbi
Have you watched the clip of a video where a passersby was being harassed by Eyo Masquerade?
It is a cruel irony of our public life that we suddenly rediscover the language of rights only when the state announces an unpopular policy. Then we speak loudly of freedom of worship, of the sanctity of life, of liberty. Yet when danger comes not in uniform, not with a seal of office, but in rags, masks and reckless bravado, our voices fall into an uneasy silence.
Why must my shop be hurriedly shut, my livelihood dragged into the shadows of fear, simply because a group has chosen to turn the streets into a theatre of menace?
Why should ordinary people be forced to retreat behind locked doors, hearts racing, breath held, as if war has been declared on an otherwise peaceful afternoon?
In those moments, the street no longer feels like a shared public space; it becomes a corridor of dread, where every step outside carries the risk of violence.
What kind of freedom allows a man, stoned drunk and stripped of reason, to roam unchecked, hurling stones, shattering bones and peace alike? What law protects the passerby whose only crime is to be present, whose blood may stain the road before anyone remembers that life, too, is sacred?
Fear has a way of making the helpless invisible. The trader trembling behind a shutter, the child pulled indoors by a panicked parent, the elderly person frozen at the sound of approaching chants, these are casualties we rarely count. Yet their terror is real, their freedom just as violated.
This practice cannot continue as sacred tradition immune from scrutiny. It must be reviewed, confronted, and reformed. Because freedom that thrives on the fear of others is no freedom at all, and any society that condemns oppression from the state but excuses terror from non-state actors is merely choosing which nightmares it is willing to endure.
…. Akanbi is an editor with ThisDay Newspapers and wrote from Lagos.
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