During the locust years of the Military presidency of General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, responsible Nigerian youths domiciled in complacency and disillusionment with the evil reign of this evil-genius General. Many resourceful and politically astute Nigerians sat on the fence while Babangida toyed with their future. Those who had little or no idea of what governance meant gambled, and they were elected into various political positions to direct the affairs of our beleaguered country. Babangida and his cronies plundered and plunged Nigeria into the abyss-a deep and seemingly bottomless pit of the period. The rest is abysmal experience and the imprisonment of our dreams in the chasm of history.
The declarations of Omoyele Sowore and other envisioned Nigerian youths are a clear positive handwriting on the wall for a future reassured. Sowore is a political pugilist and quintessential Nigerian who I know has paid his dues to the system. Sowore is a fallible human rights activist, but with the right people around him, he will uncompromisingly deliver Nigeria from the claws of the current hedonistic leaders. This writer believes in Sowore and other willing and well determined Nigerian youths. Those who are coming out to take the lead of fighting official corruption in Nigeria must be supported, moreso, from where president Muhammadu Buhari has erred or failed.
Meanwhile, the complexity of the current nuance and our age-long contradictions in Nigeria will be the first burden for the emerging Nigerian youths. Politics of graft, godfatherism and gargantuan official corruption in Nigeria will fight back to discourage and dissuade the evolving new normal. Stolen monies will be used to weaponize some traitors among the youths, the political paradigm of the evolving period will face a great assault from senile politicians who have the financial wherewithal to fight back. But the mobilization and conscientization of the impoverished populace will do the magic and sway the minds of the apathetic people in the Nigerian polity. The coalition of Nigerian youths must come out with clear futuristic blueprints and robust achievable manifestoes or programme to win the hearts of these disgruntled, hopeless and hapless Nigerians.
You have to be in hallucinogenic state to even attempt to bribe Sowore and his like. Those who know Sowore very well will attest to his incorruptible persona. He is a noncomformist to capitalism and official corruption in Nigeria. Sowore is a classic student of Marxism. He believes that capitalism is the antithesis of socialism. Sowore is an untiring advocate of a classless society, a society where system of economic and political thought as developed by Karl Marx along with Friedrich Engel is entrenched, especially the maxim that the “state throughout history has been a device for the exploitation of the masses by a dominant class, that class has been the main agency of historical change, and that the capitalist system, containing from the first seeds of its own decay, will inevitably, after the period of dictatorship of the proletariat, be superseded by socialist order and a classless society.”
Nigerian youths have always vacillated from confusion to deliberate ignorance. Nigerian leaders have taken the advantage of youth’s conformity with the status quo to perfect and perpetuate the reign of impunity. The process of democratic norms and the principle of liberation must emerge. This principle is inherent to real Marxism, which implies “democracy and self-emancipation; it also means that democracy is the indispensable foundation for a new society (called socialism or communism).”
This is the time to use our impeccable credentials and resources to redraw our future. When people like Sowore, Dr. Malcolm Fabiyi, Dr. Leke Otunuga, Fela Durotoye, Chris Emejuru, Ahmed Buhari, Toyosi Akerele-Ogunsiji and a host of others resourceful Nigerians come to fore with audacity to challenge the status quo, it is onus on all of us to jettison geopolitical rivalries and naughtiness to support these positive willing tools of our great future. Economically, the intuitive Nigerians in the diaspora will tell you that Nigeria can favourably compete with the United States and other western countries if our resources are judiciously, equitably managed and utilized.
Sowore and these illustrious, fearless and envisioned individuals must be encouraged and supported to realise our dream of returning Nigeria to sanity. These are people with fecund minds for the emancipation of the deprived, dehumanized and oppressed people of Nigeria. A lot of Sowore’s adversaries and admirers think Sowore is an unnecessary brash young man with impetuous mind, but some of us who know sowore in our school days will be glad to tell you that his fearless, selfless and ‘impulsive behavior’ is for the good of all Nigerians.
Overwhelmingly, Sowore and these evolving minds are detribalized citizens with futuristic ideas to liberate Nigeria from the shackles of official corruption and indiscipline. Sowore has sense of inclusiveness in his geopolitical mantra. He is a young man you can disagree to agree with on any national issue of discourse. His zero tolerance for political prostitution has endeared him to many forward looking citizens of Nigeria. His recalcitrant posture has also created political enemies for him amongst the aristocrats. 2019 is a defining moment in the history of this generation of Nigerians. Nigerian youths should begin to erase the alias of “a wasted generation” from their lives. Enough should be enough!
Interestingly, dreaming for the future is the current trend and buzz in Nigeria. It is a welcome development and the youth’s political enthusiasm and participation must be encouraged and sustained. Nigerian youths are enliving their responsibilities to rewrite their ugly history. The evolving nuances are signs that Nigeria will be great again. We must come together to participate in national discourse or conversation to return Nigeria to true democracy to bring prosperity for all. We must expunge the toga of pessimism and hopelessness from the Nigerian youth’s lexicon. Men of yesterday must be expunged from the drawing board of Nigerian polity. Men of yesterday currently festering our politics have political antiquities that are irrelevant to the 21st century democratic challenges. We must stop them!
This is the auspicious period in the lives of the Nigerian youths. This is the time for all Nigerian youths to come together, regroup smartly through a viable coalition to take back the country from decades of waste and mismanagement. Nigerian youths must remain unison and indivisible to be the magnificent representations of the progress of Nigeria.
“A luta continua, vitória é certa” meaning, “The struggle continues, victory is certain” if we speak in unison!
