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How To Start A Revolution (Part 3) By Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo

… and now the template. When I published How to Start a Revolution  on January 21, 2010 and How to Start a Revolution: Step by Step Guide  on February 11, 2010, the former Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, was still preparing to hand over power to his son sometime in 2012. The Egyptian people were still resigned to what had looked like an insurmountable fate that befell them. 

… and now the template. When I published How to Start a Revolution  on January 21, 2010 and How to Start a Revolution: Step by Step Guide  on February 11, 2010, the former Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, was still preparing to hand over power to his son sometime in 2012. The Egyptian people were still resigned to what had looked like an insurmountable fate that befell them. 

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As I watched the Former Egyptian president on trial two weeks ago, on a hospital bed, caged like a captured lion, it reminded me of that saying we often attribute to Zik that “no condition is permanent.”

I’m particularly impressed that our own Olusegun Obasanjo, who wanted to perpetuate himself in power, found it disgusting that a former president like him was treated in such an undignified way. It tells me that someone like Ibrahim Babangida will also be nauseated by such a treatment of a former president, who was also his friend.

If Nigerians are attentive, that should tell them something about how to discomfort these people who ruined Nigeria. Discomforting them is something we have never succeeded in doing.

This is my theory: Nigeria is a failed nation that works for the very people who failed it. Therefore, they do not have any incentive to make Nigeria a successful nation that works for you and me.

Since those who failed Nigeria have blocked every other possible remedy, those who love Nigeria must work to dismantle the current order – even if it means dismantling the whole edifice. That is the only thing that will compel those who failed Nigeria to reverse course.

And if they don’t, they will all be swept away by the storm.

I recently heard a story of a stark naked woman who entered a taxi. She told the driver the address where she was going. The driver sat there and stared at her. He did not move the car. The woman barked, “Why are you staring at me, haven’t you seen a naked woman before?” The taxi driver said, “It is not that. I’m just wondering where you kept the money with which you will pay me.”

In looking at Nigeria, the bigger question we must ask ourselves is; are we asking the wrong questions? Because “if they can get you asking the wrong questions,” Thomas Pyncho warned, “they don’t have to worry about the answers.”

Every four years, Nigerian politicians make a fool of Nigerian voters. We constantly elect men and women who conduct public affairs solely for private gains. How long shall we repeat that? Is the solution extending the terms of these men and women to six years?

Which way Nigeria? “If you don’t know where you’re going, then any road will take you there.”

Nobody saw what is now called the Arab Spring of Discontent coming. It simply exploded. In it we saw how a small group of committed people can use modern technological tools to gather a critical mass that will turn their societies around.

What was once thought to be hard has now been shown to be fairly simple. It is a question of whether there are committed individuals willing to pledge their fortune and their lives for the good of all.

Even the manual for the revolution has been published on the World Wide Web. In Dr. Gene Sharp’s From Dictatorship to Democracy, now free on the web, http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf  the revolutionaries of the Arab Spring found strategies they used to topple their governments.

“Dictators are never as strong as they tell you they are,” Dr. Sharp said in an interview. The same way, the people who ruin Nigeria are never as formidable as they pretend to be. For one, we know they will be uncomfortable in a cage facing trial.

Essentially, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. It is now a question of finding men and women willing to take up the challenge.

Thomas Jefferson wrote that, “if a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be.” Nigerians can be divided into two; those who are ignorant and those who feign ignorance.

There are 469 people in Nigeria’s National Assembly. They get paid over N150 million (about $1million) a year. If that is not enough to get you mad that you want to go and chase them all out of Abuja, I don’t know what would.

The Nigerian government spent $3.2 billion of our money to build Delta Steel Co. That is over N480 billion without factoring in inflation. Later, the same steel company got sold to a company that is a front for Obasanjo for mere $120 million, ie N7.5 billion. Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim bought NICON, valued at N50 billion for N1.05 billion. He used equity in the company to borrow N41 billion from Union Bank PLC. Theophilus Danjuma made $4.5 billion when he sold to a Chinese cooperation 45% share of a company he build around the two oil blocks Gen. Sani Abacha dashed him. He said that after paying taxes and taking care of all he could think of, he had $500 million left. To avoid having his children fight over too much money after he’s dead, he used $100 million to set up a Foundation. Mike Adenugu, Femi Otedola and Aliko Dangote all exhibit the same kind of business ingenuity of bribing and stealing the commonwealth.

Someone in Nigeria knows how many millions each governor takes home as security vote each month. Someone knows how much President Jonathan is worth. Someone knows how much Ibrahim Babangida paid for his Hill Top mansion. Someone knows where Abdulsalaim Abukakar hides his billions. Someone has a copy of the Okigbo Report. Someone knows how much money Enoch Adeboye gets paid each month. Someone knows how much money comes into the coffers of the Winners Chapels each month. Someone knows how much David Mark stashed in foreign banks.

That we have not had a revolution in Nigeria is partly because people who know are not telling. If Nigerians know how really rotten their system is, they will set themselves on fire like Mohamed Bouaziz, the vegetable cart seller in Tunisia whose self-immolation triggered the revolution there.

The only other possible alternative is that Nigerians can guess how bad things are. But they do not care. And the two primary reasons they do not care is because some hope to join in the plundering of what remains as soon as they get a chance, while others are busy praying for God to come down from heaven and fix things in Nigeria.

The few Nigerians outside these two categories are those on the fringe. For them, the Egyptians have published the manual they used for their revolution. You can find it here. It tells you how to protest intelligently. It tells you what to demand. It tells you what should be the strategic demands of the civil disobedience. It gives you steps for carrying out the plan. It tells you even what the necessary clothing and accessories should be. It shows you how to use the accessories and examples of signs to hold up.

The template is cast. The heavy lifting is done. What is left is a little tweaking here and there. Already the call has been made: “Who will go for us?”

The wait is on for men and women willing to say, “Here I am. Send me.”



 

 

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