Re-organise. Re-strategise. Re-focus

(A love letter to Nigerian youths)

The next battle should not be on the streets. They have their eyes and hands on that arena already: and they don’t have any moral compunction against continuing to spill your blood on those streets to postpone the destruction they know will surely come for them in the fulness of time

IT is morning yet on your path to freedom. You have shown that you have all you need to take back your future. And that frightened them. At first, the political Vultures and the so-called Elders of the land went silent for the first few days after your bold voices erupted. That silence was not born of cowardice or crisis of conscience: it was SHOCK.

They were simply amazed at the pristine sense of purpose, discipline, and manifest intelligence with which you coordinated the Protests. Then, the shock transmuted to FEAR. If you could do this what couldn’t you do? So, when they deployed all their weapons of destruction – from armored tanks and guns to commissioned thugs and arsonists – they didn’t hate you, they were fighting for their SURVIVAL.

They won the battle, this time, because the scale of might and resources tilts in their favour. But they haven’t won the war. They can’t. Not ever. There is no part of humankind’s material or spiritual history that tells of Evil remaining victorious FOR EVER.

The next battle should not be on the streets. They have their eyes and hands on that arena already: and they don’t have any moral compunction against continuing to spill your blood on those streets to postpone the destruction they know will surely come for them in the fulness of time.

The next battle must not be fought (and can never be won) through looting and destroying government and private businesses and properties, as some crass opportunists have commenced. This will only demonise the causes you are so desperate to articulate.

THE next battle, the real one, has a date already. It is set for 2023. But the preparations start today. Not tomorrow. Not when INEC officially sanctions political activities.

For now, mourn the dead and wasted. Mobilise material, legal and psychological support for bereaved families. Resist the mindless temptation to shift this tragedy into the arena of social media jokes, entertaining memes and comic skits (as some of you are already doing). Instead, retain the fire of raw anger in your hearts and let that anger rebirth and resolve your new purpose.

Re-organise. Re-strategise. Re-focus.

Build structures. Mobilise into units of selfless volunteers, not ‘Leaders’ to achieve set tasks.

There should be one and only one aim now: to IGNORE and REJECT the Vultures of the Land when the time comes.

You may start by identifying and compiling a comprehensive list of those to be IGNORED and REJECTED

* The ones who have been convicted of all forms of public malfeasance – from those who plead that corruption is not stealing to those whose hands were actually caught in the till.

* The ones who have had quite ample means to speak (and act) out against political tyranny but are too weak, cowardly or compromised to do so.

* The intellectual/spiritual apologists and professional foragers of influence who spin inane narratives to hoodwink the masses while serving the warped wishes of their benefactors. (For instance, there are some of these right now spitting on social media that the Lekki Massacre was staged by Nollywood filmmakers hired by Protesters, or that some key political culprits of the tragedy were only poor, manipulated victims of a macabre plot to ‘destabilize’ the South West)

* All those who were entrusted with functions, offices and responsibilities that could have halted or at least slowed the slide of the masses into poverty and despondence, but they betrayed the nation (Right now, we are discovering scores of warehouses where so-called Covid-19 palliatives have been hoarded and secretly, systematically looted for months)

Compile these names. Store the list. And when the DATE OF REJECTION nears, let every youth have and memorise this list. These are the people that must be wiped away from the threshold of your future in 2023.

And don’t forget to emphasise these people’s surnames because they may retreat when the time comes and put their children and relations forward to seek our approval. Reject their children too.

This suggestion is only one among hundreds of other possible scenarios of working towards the Date of Rejection. Let ideas, strategies, structures and activities flourish…

#EndBadGovernance #SecureTheFuture #rejectthefilth