15 things to think about before EndSARS (III)

Continued from last week 12.If the youths want to have a stab at governance – because sometimes when you complain too much about something, you find out you just have to do it yourself – do they join the old parties or form new ones? Or do both? The danger in old parties is that […]

Continued from last week

12.If the youths want to have a stab at governance – because sometimes when you complain too much about something, you find out you just have to do it yourself – do they join the old parties or form new ones? Or do both? The danger in old parties is that they are so ingrained in their old, corrupt and shady ways, you may join them and become them. But you stand a higher chance of winning if you could get near being nominated. New parties often retain their innocence – if the founders are honest and innocent themselves – but winning is hard because of funds, reach and visibility. We still have more than 80% of our people being poor and so easy to sway by the old politicians anyway. Great challenge for the youths.

13. Protesters in plush areas like Lekki, Allen Avenue and Alausa should note that the hordes of people who showed up latter – the looters and arsonists – are a totally different species. If such people accost genuine protesters in dark corners, they will feast on them. However, these are the people who vote for old politicians for N2,000 or less. The number of genuine #EndSARS protesters is therefore infinitesimal compared with these folks. If you want to make an impact in politics by now you have to have a strategy to reach out to the people – especially by touching their lives positively. Sometimes they just need food to eat for the day.

14. Anyone who is really in a hurry should have started by now planning and working towards 2023. Again, our best option is politics. The alternative is anarchy. I will explain below from a historical perspective. We have about 830 days to the next elections. Barely 27 months.

15. How come many youths are not contrite about the number of police guns looted and on the streets? We hear crime rate has risen but many people I have seen on social media dismissed it because it isn’t yet their turn to grieve. But what goes around, comes around. Why are the youths not seeing themselves as leaders already rather than mere protesters? This country is yours to run and you must be concerned that thousands of convicted criminals were set free while police stations were raided and hundreds of guns looted. Who do you think will come visiting this country for leisure anytime soon? Even Nigerian Diasporans – many of whom also supported and encouraged and funded the protests – will not be willing to come home anytime soon. Am I right?

So, I’ve written some stuff here that will provoke some people. Before anyone asks what I’ve done to give me the gumption to try and lecture others, let me say I try my best. When COVID lockdown started and knowing many people were not prepared for it, I shared the little I had to friends and random strangers on Facebook. After my campaigns, I started three NGOs; one of them gathers used books from children of the privileged and we take them to poor, village and inner city public schools, where millions of children have no books, old or new. We supplement with exercise books and other writing materials. Another of my NGOs focuses on the environment, and the third on ideas around tertiary education and how our youths can be immediately useful to society. Let each one of us try their best. Now is the time to give, not only to protest. And no billionaire or corrupt multimillionaire who has gamed the system should think they can hide under protests to whitewash their dirty image. We know who is what in this country. And history matters.

Trust deficit

So, I see trouble ahead for whoever will inherit the governance of this country. It is not a walk in the park. Many who aspire do so for the photo opportunity, or just to have their names written down as big men. They mostly have no plans for Nigeria. I shudder at the enormity of Nigeria’s problems. I wrote recently that Nigeria should be like Japan, where leaders resign so frequently because of the stress of office.  With EndSARS, the youths have upped the ante even for themselves. I see that now, the youths shout down even the best initiatives from their leaders, and take delight to drag and destroy people on Twitter. It cannot be fun leading this country again for as far as the eyes can see. Trust – at least some of it – is very important in the progress of nations. If the theory of Elite Overproduction is true, I believe that an imaginative and visionary leadership could solve the problem. Like I have always insisted on this page, Nigeria still does not have a proper public sector focused on public goods. We therefore have a big absorptive capacity for the new elite we are creating, if the idea is about service. Buhari cannot understand what I am talking about. But Nigerians, young and old, must however reexamine their motivations. Like Gandhi once said, there will always be enough for our needs, but never enough for our greed. Nigeria can create millions of roles for our masses in education, security, environment, mass mobilization and reorientation, health sector, and so on, and give these new elite leadership roles there. We have a nation to build, almost from the scratch.

Sociopsychology of colonisation

Part of what we need to think about is historical. How come more and more, no leader is ever good in Nigeria? Are leaders not chosen from among followers? Many of those agitating today will find themselves in leadership positions tomorrow but may have instituted a culture of constant heckling, distrust, ‘dragging’, or reputation attacks on Twitter, or even outright fabrications against whoever is in government. The youths may reap this legacy, except they start course-correction at some deliberate point in time. Social media is a double-edged sword. It cuts both ways.  I think we now have a very negative relationship between the leaders and the led in Nigeria, such that even well-intentioned leaders often get discouraged. Should followers be watchdogs, or bloodhounds? That is a question we ask about the auditor in accounting. Nigerian youths should see themselves as leaders already and always protect the country and her future.

Also, our youths understand that going forward the only leadership that may somehow work will be very austere i.e. if you want to serve government, bring your own car. The same minimum wage that some youths have recommended for people in government may be their lot as leadership gets to their turn. So, the youths must get their facts very right. A life of luxury, which many of the privileged ones are already used to, is not compatible with the kind of leadership Nigeria needs going forward. Again, since all of us Nigerians are cut from the same cloth, it will be very interesting to see how leadership outcomes will be different in this country when today’s youths take over the reins. My fear is that no leader is good in our books, and this is almost a universal problem. Rawlings just died. It was until I went to Ghana that I realized he is not as loved as he is in Nigeria. Governor Zulum risks his life in the fight against Boko Haram but many dismiss him still. I used to think M.K. Gandhi was a hero in India until my Indian neighbour said he was a bum! The risk is that if future leaders become ascetic, deny themselves of even food to get this country going, it will be very hurtful for them to hear people dismissing them and diminishing their sacrifices.  We may thus end up recycling the worst amongst us who don’t mind the insults as they continue to loot. Now is the time to think about that.

 

Concluded.