A Memo to Nigeria’s Youth: How To Create Our Desired Future

Source: Google

We are failing to act again, while 2023 is approaching

The situation in Nigeria is starting to look hopeless for many. Despite all the recent killings, kidnappings, and all sorts of insecurity challenges faced by the citizenry in the last few weeks; the President of Nigeria is yet to address the Nation or communicate a decisive plan to end it. What is worrying is, most enlightened and upwardly mobile young people are projecting a scenario where things are not likely to improve in the short term even if the Government decides to act and end the immediate insecurity crises. They argue the number of unemployed Nigerians will continue to provide a pool for recruiting perpetrators of all kinds of evil to Society.

Nigeria’s youth demonstrated an unprecedented level of coordination during the End SARs protest — revealing the key ingredient for bringing about any change. While many are still recovering from the trauma of its aftermath, this article was written to suggest a pragmatic plan to put Nigeria back on track through the active participation of its Youth. Too many calls have been made to the Nigerian youth to unite and take over the helm of affairs of this country but the Youth lack a clear plan or the leadership to do so.

If Nigeria’s Youth does not quickly act now, it will be presented with the same set of candidates and consequences in 2023 — which have plagued the country since inception.

The legal and most effective way to bring about change in a democracy is through the electoral process — getting involved in the process of selecting the leaders and holding them accountable for their actions.

The Challenges with Nigeria’s Youth — Threatening its Ability to Act

It's ignorant — Respectfully speaking my fellow youth, because we do not understand how Government works among other things, we cannot change things. In my estimate, excluding security, the President is still less than 30% responsible for the problems of Nigeria. Local Government Chairmen or women (if any), State Governors, The Legislature (State and Federal), and Civil Servants (State and Federal) are the remaining 70%. Civil servants are responsible for implementing Nigeria’s budget and all the schools that would have been built, kids that would have been sent to school, and all sorts of projects that would have been implemented to make our lives better were truncated on the desks of these Government officials. This is not to mention that most of Nigeria’s budget is salaries of civil servants.

According to an analysis of Nigeria’s 2020 budget by PwC, “cumulative Federal Government (FG) personnel costs, pensions, and gratuities (from 2011 to 2020) will be over N20 trillion”

I would argue that Nigeria’s civil service can run on half of its current personnel strength. That means we would have had N10 trillion for real development — that could have delivered a small Dubai in each geopolitical zone in Nigeria.

We have not accounted for State Civil Servants or the waste from poorly organized training and all kinds of frivolities spent by Civil servants. So you can see the budget creators have quietly taken care of themselves over the years. This does not include the waste and leakages among revenue-generating agencies such as Customs, FIRS, NNPC etc. — where “some” officers directly pocket part of Government funds at the source.

I will address this issue in my recommendations below.

It’s not strategic — The Elite Old Guard are not just going to hand over power to us on a platter of Gold, we need to take it using the laid down democratic process — Elections! We also do not understand how much resources we have at our disposal. The average progressive young Nigerian would back any initiative that will save Nigeria. Even those abroad become more patriotic when they relocate or from there. From Celebrities, to Tech. Entrepreneurs, to Faith Leaders — they are mostly on our side and we have the potential to start somewhere.

Politics is not a Black Hole: The Elite have made it look like an exclusive club for the brave or ruthless, forgetting that technocrats like Governors Fayemi and El-Rufai were ordinary people like some of us, who rose within the ranks to clinch their current positions. Yes, it requires money and it's a grassroots game, but you and I have more resources combined to change things than we could imagine.

Let’s dive into the solution. First, let me paint a future state:

What if in 2023, we sweep into offices across Local Governments, State and Federal houses of Assemblies, and Governorship positions? Imagine if we had brilliant and sincere minds, similar to those running some of the most successful enterprises in Nigeria, distributed across the various levels of Government identified above? Mind you, I left the Presidency out for a reason and would explain later.

On getting there, we negotiate more resources for the sub-National Government (State and Local Governments) and develop a sustainable accountability framework — that ensures we do not perform worse than those who occupied the positions before us. Afterwards, we can now focus on fixing our local issues such as Healthcare, Education, Roads, Security, etc. — which impact our daily lives more directly. Pending when these negotiations for devolution of powers finish, we can begin to execute change at the local levels with the little resources already available at the sub-National-level.

Here is a potential plan for 2023

1. We need to be United under One Platform

By Platform, I mean the political party (vehicle) we will use to participate in the democratic process.

We have three broad options and have to be united in making this decision.

I. We can join any of the existing non-popular parties.

II. We can join one of the major parties — APC or PDP OR

III. We simply form a new Party.

What will make this decision easier is defining the rules of engagement even before we enter. What we really need now is to seize power and when we cross that hurdle we can continue to modify the vehicle. Each point above has an argument for or against it. I will suggest we use a rigorous critical thinking process to make that decision. Even our current President joined forces with the unlikely before getting the chance to be President.

This point came first because we are running out of time to 2023, but it should be executed alongside other recommendations below.

2. We need to organize ourselves and put our house in order

Independent of our Political Party (The initial vehicle) we will be joining, we need to know ourselves and align on our values, develop our political tools, identify our candidates and build capacity to seize power. This is briefly how:

Value Alignment —

• Competence — using debates and clearly defined performance management systems to elect leaders and manage processes. If leaders do not meet their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) within defined timelines, they are asked to honorably resign.
• Accountability — use blockchain technology to track every penny and activity on the Platform.
• Equality — There should be no mention of religion/faith, gender, ethnicity, or income, in fact it should not be used to identify anyone or be asked during registration. No opening and closing prayers, all positions must be 50:50 between women and men and every leader should be elected based on a democratic campaign process run online. This issue is critical because it could be used to divide us. We don’t want to know your religion, gender or state of origin! Nigeria is multi-religious and ethnic and we have to embrace that in our approach to get the desired results.
• Wisdom — Rely on the wisdom of some members of the Old Guard. You know them and we do not need to mention names here. They will carefully and quietly advise us on this journey. We ignored them during the End SARs campaign and will not make the same mistake. They understand Government and the weaknesses of their contemporaries who do not mean well for Nigeria. We also need a significant dose of online courses on Politics and Governance — we will invite the Sound political scientists among us to direct movies, write curricula and all kinds of content to Educate the average youth. Funds from our central purse will be committed to this.

Organization —

• We need a National online youth conference. While that may sound ambitious and grand, we need the same momentum we gathered during the End SARs movement to create our future. The proposed hashtag, for now, is #DesiredFuture.
• Let us organize ourselves in groups of 100 people known as cells, where we have a small leadership team of 3–5 people who will coordinate the affairs of the cell and report upwards. 100 is also a manageable number on WhatsApp and the typical participant size for an online meeting. Let people of common interests form their cells all across Nigeria. 100 cells will form a Unit and a 100 units will form a delegation. That will make it three tiers of organization — designed to make execution effective and build coercion and leadership. There will be a final leadership at the Delegate Tier and all these processes will be managed with blockchain technology.
• Each member will have an ID (mainly phone no.) and will be able to view the Portal to vote. Leaders will be thrust from the cell level until we get to the delegate level. Who will build this technology? This will be answered under the funding section.
• The national conference will simply be the launch pad and subsequent portal that warehouses the activities of all these cells and manages the administration of the system. The admins. using technology will be elected and every activity will be there for all to see. More details will be provided in subsequent articles.
• Our laws will be created using blockchain technology where every clause is voted and comments for or against it are viewed before decisions are made.

3. Managing Our Brothers and Sisters at the Grassroots

We all agree that one of the things that killed the End SARs movement was Hunger at the grassroots level. Poverty is a tool the Elite Old Guard have used for too long. We have to be “our brothers’ keepers”. We will launch the most elaborate feeding scheme in Nigeria. Borrowing ideas from RedCross and other organizations with the capability to feed millions during disasters and wars. We will launch operation No Hungry Nigerian. This will be an initiative funded by us that ensures no Nigerian sleeps hungry and everyone has at least one meal a day. This will be the most elaborate scheme that connects a feeding system from Farm to Table for the poor — ensuring jobs are created along the way. This will be largely donor-funded as part of our scheme in the short term. Each meal will carry a message, We Love you, we are equal, and let’s build the desired future together.

The system will also ensure, every child in Nigeria goes to School. Read more about this in my article on the “Voltron Force” on Medium also.

While the Old Guard may have used the grassroots to buy votes into power, we will use the same but not to their detriment but to their benefit, and trust me — most of them will accept us. In fact, if we don’t move now, they will soon come for us, the clock is ticking.

Where Government has failed, let’s step in and avert a disaster!

4. Funding

We will need money! If 1 million youth donate N1,000 monthly, we will realize N1billion monthly. Can we push our luck to 10million Youth, home and abroad? That will be a N10billion monthly. Let’s take the N10billion as seed funding and remember we will receive multiple more in kind from the various participations of Nigerian businesses both home and abroad. I imagine the proposed Tech. platform for instance will be donated by a Technology company.

• Funding will be opened to all in an open contributory system that is transparently administered online.
• Procurements will also be done openly with calls for bids that will be digitally administered. Vendor selection will be based on competitive pricing and the same technology used for the lottery will be adopted for selecting the best offers. Any member of the cell system, can log in and view activities and participate.

5. Take-off — Where do we begin from?

“So good ideas so far”, where do we begin from and what is the implementation plan?

• We need an ignition — we may need 2 or 3 popular figures to endorse this and broadcast on social media — so it catches fire. When that happens, we will need to quickly form an initial social media handle for making announcements and then organize our first national youth conference.
• At the conference, modalities for the organization will be provided and a technology platform conceived. We will need Technology to drive this as described above.
• When the Tech. is built with all the amazing features, everyone will now hop in and we begin to build

When we cross this hurdle, we now begin to build a plan to take over everything except the Presidency. Why leave the Presidency, let’s be smart — let that be our bargaining chip with the old guard. We will support so and so (no endorsements here) in exchange for one term and the last person for that generation. We will however require in exchange, more resources at the sub-national level, where we will build our schools, do our roads, equip our hospitals, and security — just like we already do in our well-organized estates! This is also important for a smooth transition and less friction with the Old Guard who frankly speaking have already gone far with 2023. More importantly, let’s restore power to the local government level and use the same level of organization at our estates, to now run local governments.

Don’t say you didn’t get this memo.

Watch out for Part II!

Cheers to Our Desired Future!

Emmanuel Tarfa