With all due respect to Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State whose sweeping statements on the capability of Nigerians to stage a revolution were as fallacious as they were repugnant and flippant, there is a simmering Nigerian (Youth) Revolution humming softly in the background. Naysayers and pessimists can dismiss it all they want, but that won’t discountenance the fact that it is happening any way.
With all due respect to Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State whose sweeping statements on the capability of Nigerians to stage a revolution were as fallacious as they were repugnant and flippant, there is a simmering Nigerian (Youth) Revolution humming softly in the background. Naysayers and pessimists can dismiss it all they want, but that won’t discountenance the fact that it is happening any way.
Amaechi and his coterie of inept leaders mistake a revolution for some mass uprising; garnering so much media attention and basking in the klieg-lights of the cameras. On the contrary, a revolution could coalesce when infinitesimal actions by oppressed groups of persons reach an inevitable tipping point. And we are this close to one.
Those of us who fill several column inches and blog spaces pontificating and sermonizing on Nigeria and its flawed political system, are often accused of not being in touch with the realities on the ground. We are reminded that “well written blog posts travel slower than Ankara and bags of rice on polling days”, “mobilization for election purposes happen on the ground and not on Twitter”, “Only few people in rural Nigeria have access to the internet and no one reads your lousy posts any way”, “the day you are called to ‘come and eat’ in Government, you will stop all these posturing” ,“You jobless ranter” etc.
Nigeria is a tough place to earn your stripes as a columnist and an even tougher place for a political columnist like yours truly. On the list of thankless jobs, keeping a weekly column should be right up there alongside mobilizing for change and eating sour ‘Igbin’ on a Sunday morning.
My job afforded me the opportunity to test some of the theories bandied around and highlighted above during my forced hiatus from writing, a fortnight ago. I probably visited over a dozen villages and a handful of cities. And everywhere I ended up, especially in the semi-urban areas, one question was a constant: “Is the #20MillionYouth Movement dead?”
In suburban Lagos, as I sit hunched over drinks with friends during some weekends, I get ambushed with that poser as well in different variants: “What is happening with the #20MillionYouthsFor2015 Movement? Are you guys the youth wing of the APC? How do we register to become a part of it all? Why the sudden silence?”
The Movement is not dead and will never die. The Movement has no affiliation to any Political Party and only seeks to bestow Nigerians with a voting bloc expected to swing votes across all tiers of Government in every election year beginning with 2015. To kill the Movement, our detractors will have to buy every one of us in different States and in different Cell structures, one after the other. And that will take some spending and several (wo)man hours too!
The #20MillionYouthsFor2015 Movement is an attitude; a way of life. It should metamorphose into a culture if we work at it altruistically. It doesn’t belong to Chinedu Ekeke, Olumide Muyiwa , Araabmoney or Tope Aigba. It is not a branch of ‘Jude Egbas’ Group of Companies’, ‘Tope Atiba Chambers and Sons’ or ‘Abubakar Abusidiqu’s Estate Surveyors and Valuers’. The first mistake we will make will be to abdicate what should ideally belong to every young woman or man in Nigeria to a handful of persons. Everyone in Nigeria who is young or young at heart and who desires change should own the Movement and run with it. This was why the ‘Cell Structure’ was adapted to enable the Movement regenerate across the land with the ease of a hydra.
The Movement is only just evolving. In the main, the registration portal is still open and the Cells are expanding across Nigeria daily at a re-assuring pace. Instead of taking umbrage at the efforts of a few young men and women who are working tirelessly round the clock to bequeath Nigeria with its first full fledged vehicle for change, why not join a Cell, start one, recruit like-minded persons or spread the message in some way? Rather than pillory the many young men and women who are doing their bit across Nigeria to keep the Movement alive, wouldn’t it make better sense to offer them some pat on the back or just keep mum? The Movement is also open to working and forging alliances with like-minded groups and individuals whose bellies still burn with the fire for a national rebirth.
Our country awaits-- from Lokoja to Ogoja and from Lagos to Maiduguri-- with bated breath. It’s a tall order, but our strength and hope lies with everyone who is reading this piece. Let’s walk the talk for once. It is the very least we can do in the circumstances. In the final analysis, we all have to resolve to become the change we seek.
And it will be the only way to shut the likes of Amaechi up….and for good.
The writer is a columnist with ekekeee and a member of the ‘20 Million Youth Movement’ and Thought Leadership Forum (TLF). He advocates for change on Twitter as @egbas
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of SaharaReporters
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