For Nigerians, one lesson is that they possess a latent power capable of bringing change -- if only the people will it.

There are also important lessons about opportunists and saboteurs. It wasn't hard to see their trails during and after the mass protests. The protests had hardly died down when some of the labor leaders found their way into plush government committees. Others formed themselves into "stakeholders" and began earnestly to jostle for government patronage even as the issues that sparked the protests had not been addressed.

Even so, I believe the awareness created about the pervasive corruption in the oil sector made a difference. But it was not the issue. After all, Nigerians already knew government officials and their corporate accomplices were stealing. "Occupy Nigeria" simply washed the carcass of the whale of corruption ashore.

The eventual revelation by a parliamentary committee that a grand sum of $6.8 billion had been stolen through subsidy scams is a yet unresolved scandal. Nigerians suspect, with good reason, that their top government officials are in no hurry to unmask the gluttonous embezzlers of fuel subsidies. In fact, the impression is that the culprits, law enforcement officials, and the judges have all retired to their usual zone of criminal complicity and comfort. No one will be punished.

As the people of Nigeria still hanker for their African "Spring," the "Occupy" movement can re-emerge at any time to take Nigeria by storm.