SIR: There exists a consensus of a sort on the state of the Nigerian State. A specter is haunting Nigeria — the specter of parasitic leadership. And perhaps that of connivance of the masses.
Nigerian populace, at will, takes delight in hurling swipes at their political elites while turning a blind eye to their contribution to the rot in the Augean stable.
Nonetheless, the complicity of the masses, in the poverty of leadership rocking the Nigerian state, is traceable to the crisis of unsustainable livelihood ravaging the rank and file. Talk about the stomach infrastructure.
To achieve political ends, politicians manipulate the socioeconomic dynamics of society to create conditions that engender poverty. This is what social scientists now dubbed the “weaponization of poverty.”
Still wonder why vote-buying and crowd-renting still remain integral parts of our electoral system despite the everyday cries of inept leadership? Claude Ake famously wrote — “Man must eat before he can do anything else.” He termed it the primacy of material conditions.
Presumably, the spring of political awakening among the Nigerian youths has provided a laboratory for social scientists to experiment upon. The first question to ask is: How did the country’s traditionally, politically, docile younger demographics, suddenly wake up, in the manner of Arab Spring, to demand good governance?
“Each generation must, out of relative obscurity,” Frantz Fanon noted in ‘Wretched of the Earth,’ “discover its mission, fulfil it, or betray it.”
Whether you see it as the residue of the EndSARS protest — as many have argued, or the birth of Neo-Nigerianism. Never in our chequered history have young people shown this great interest in the political process.
From PVC registration to the formation of Political Action Committees, Nigerian youths have sent a strong message to the establishment, it’s no longer business as usual — The roles of youths in elections have changed from ballot box snatchers and uninterested voters to informed voters and polling booth vanguards.
Make no mistake about it, the 2023 Elections will be a bout between the change campaigners and the proponents of the status quo. Whether Peter Obi emerges victorious or not, 2023 will be marked in our annals of politics as the election that changed all elections. In due appreciation to the contributions of Nigerian youths, many will look back with nostalgia and forth the cry: This is their finest hour.
•Asikason Jonathan,
Enugwu-Ukwu, Anambra State.