Opinion: #NotTooYoungToRun | The need for physical organising

by Jude Feranmi

Those who elect corrupt politicians are not victims, they are accomplices – George Orwell

Have you ever wondered how Martin Luther King, Mahtama Ghandi, Nelson Mandela organised the entire masses of people for the political causes they believe in? Do you get inspired, have goose bumps or even feel angry when you read the biographies of these men and some others?

Do you ever wish that we could have an Okubo Toshimichi in Nigeria who would replicate the Japanese Restoration of the 18th century? Don’t you just get angry at the fact that when you have discussions about this country with your friends, you all just submit ideas and give examples and then you all just go back to your different lives where the Nigerian factor hits you again? And you are then forced to go back to the status quo which is the rat race?

Cut all of this. You can be angrier than angry birds and your anger wouldn’t even kill a mosquito. Your anger wouldn’t reduce the price of food in the market and would not get the pension of your retired parents to them either.

And then comes social media. It should not be surprising that social media is Nigeria’s graveyard of ANGER. You post an honest tweet and people pounce on you, whether for RTs, allegiance to an overlord or what have you.

All of that anger and NOTHING to show for it. The resulting effect is what you have in a Governor Ajimobi who would ask you the golden question, What is the worst you want to do?

Now think about that question and find an answer as things stand right now. The answer is NOTHING!

This generation will talk and talk and not organise. We need to start having meetings all over the country. We need to stop agonising and start organising.

It is the only way. It is the only way!

Nobody ever talks himself into power without a vibrant backbone that is created through organising those who share their sentiments. It is NOT Done!

I walked by a start-up office last week and saw on the wall this quote,

RTs and Likes don’t pay your salaries, Clients DO!

If you agree with a tweet about what needs to be done to save our already mortgaged future as youths so much so you can Retweet it, You should also be able to attend a meeting.

If you can write a thread that gets up to 10 RTs per tweet, you should be able to organise a meeting in your community about that thread and that cause you believe in.

The older generation has tagged us the Lazy Twitter Generation that lacks rigour, seriousness and activity. Let us not prove them right!

P.S If you have not gotten any new information from this piece, take this one home.

If you so much care about this country and your future, do one of two things, either join those who are already organising or start organising yourself.

We CAN birth a new political order. We have the ability to. We have the power to. We have the numbers too. We just have to believe that we can and start organising

Enough Said!


Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Jude ‘Feranmi is the National Youth Leader, KOWA party

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