DEMAND SPECIFICS IN 2015: A MESSAGE TO NIGERIAN YOUTHS

 DEMAND SPECIFICS IN 2015: A MESSAGE TO NIGERIAN YOUTHS


I am humbled to be a part of the growth that is happening on TurnOnDoveStreet (TODS). TODS exemplifies what can be achieved with focus and hard work... In this election season, it is imperative that young Nigerians become the change that they wish to see. It is no longer enough to be part of the couch-analyzers, the twitter-critics, and the naysayers. We all have to take part, in order to take charge.

In this regard, to start of my Monday column on TODS, I would like to remind young Nigerians that we can hold our leaders accountable by demanding specifics in the run up to 2015. - OWO

Fellow Nigerian Youths, On February 14th, 2015, we will be given a chance to show the world just how much we love our country. Nigerians of voting age, from every crack and crevice of our great nation will be given the opportunity to send a Valentine’s Day message at the ballot box. We will be electing our next set of national leaders – drivers of the danfo bus that so far, in our 100 year amalgamation and 53 year independence have failed to take directions from the GPS navigators provided by ‘We the People.’
Over the next one year, alliances will be formed; promises will be made; accusations will be thrown and; questions will be raised. Distractions, and political maneuvers and meanders will be the order of the next twelve months, as both the incumbents and their opposition seek to outdo, outwit and kick-out one another.

Be that as it may, as much as these occurrences and much more will always constitute the norm of the Nigerian political cycle, things need to change. For starters, the youth need to develop a concrete voice.

I say ‘concrete’ because till this day, all we have heard from the young people of Nigeria are bits and pieces – snippets of the kind of change that we wish to see. ‘Concrete,’ because now more than ever, after three presidents, fourteen failed years of representative government, and countless other events (that could only have played out in the soap opera that is Nigerian politics), we have attained that age in our young democracy when specificity, ideology, and ‘specificity of ideology’ must be demanded from our political parties and office holders.

Fool us once – shame on you. Fool us twice – again, shame on you. Fool us the third time – its still shame on you. But haba! are we going to let them continue to fool us again? When are we going to realize that unless we demand that campaign promises must be explained in detail and not only enumerated on 3, or 4, or 7-point agendas, we will always get defrauded at the polls.

Young people of Nigeria: when are we going to demand for what we want? It is one thing for a politician to stand up in front of us and say: “Ehm, this is what I am going to do if you vote for me…” and it is another thing entirely for us to say: “This is what we want you to do for us if you want our vote!”

But it does not stop at just enumerating demands – we must get specific. We say that we want a corruption free society? Ok, what does this ‘corruption free society’ look like? Does it mean greater citizen oversight over politicians and civil servants? How will this work? Does it involve going as far as advocating for the death penalty for corrupt politicians and civil servants? What will be the criteria for instituting such a penalty? We must spell this and so much more out, so that at the end of the day – there will be no mistaken agendas. We must do this to ensure that when we go out to vote on February 14th, 2015, the manifestos of politicians will be contracts acquiescing to our demands, and our ballots will be the signatures of employers that have consented to take up their services. Only then, can we be in agreement as to which direction our nation is going.

In addition to this, I cannot stress the importance of having political debates prior to the elections. Politicians always allude to themselves as the ‘fathers’ and ‘mothers’ of the nation. But, how can they say they are our fathers and mothers if they will not talk to us? What kind of parent oversees the house by only shouting orders from the master bedroom? They say they are our parents? Then let them talk to us – let them explain themselves in debates. As mentioned earlier, we are now 14 years into our democracy – which makes us political teenagers. According to psychologists, this is the age when we begin to get rebellious. So when we hear that ‘Daddy’ or ‘Mommy’ has issued another order or decree from the luxury of the master bedroom upstairs – we should shrug it off unless they come downstairs to reason with us.

Analogies aside my friends, going into 2015, we must be ready to plant our feet, firmly resolved to follow through on this next demand: “Any politician that chooses not debate his/her opponent if/when given the opportunity to do so, will not get the youth vote.” Simple and short; or as my hausa brothers would say: shikena!

Young men and women, of the Twitter and BlackBerry generation: we have the ability to alter the course of this bus, and the trajectory of our destiny. If we do not get involved by speaking out, raising our hands, and demanding the sort of change that we wish to see, they – the politicians, will give us the type of change that they think we want. And if this happens, we will be forced to watch and wait as other incompetent drivers take the wheel.

We can become the GPS of our great nation. God bless Nigeria.

Olu is the Public Relations Officer of the All Progressives Youth Forum (APYF), and a former Mediator in the Office of the New York State Attorney General. He tweets @OluWoleOnemola.