Now Our Youths are Crying and Kicking

Fellow Nigerians, I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh when
I got a call early this week from Ambassador Dayo Israel, one of
the brightest youths I had mentored in my own modest way some years
ago. It was a plaintive cry for help after the debacle of a failed
local government chairmanship aspiration bid and the death knell of
the campaign for youth emancipation in the Senate.

Dayo has since those halcyon days, when he came under my
tutelage, worked very hard to be an iconic youth in Nigeria and
beyond. Dayo recently threw his hat into the political ring
recently when he attempted to pick the APC Chairmanship nomination
for Lagos Mainland Local Government, to contest today against other
Lagos Mainland Chairmanship aspirants in that Local Government of
Lagos State. As you read my epistle right now, the election is
taking place as scheduled but without Dayo’s name on the ballot
papers.

Dayo had requested my intervention, several times in the last
few months, for help with his political aspiration. He took his
case to the high and mighty in our society and solicited the
support of political godfathers in his party, APC. There is no
doubt that Dayo is eminently qualified to run in this race and I
was reasonably assured that he would deliver on most of the
promises made by him. However, the arithmetic of politics in
Nigeria, and in most places, is not always one plus one. The way
these things are configured often make it impossible for brilliant
young guys like Dayo to have a smooth sail in political climes like
Nigeria. Ask me! I had my own Baptism of fire in 2011 when I got
inspired by the audacity and miracle of Barack Obama in the United
States of America and assumed foolishly that such could be
replicated back home in Nigeria. Lord have mercy, I was dead
wrong.

I had predicated my faith and boundless optimism on several
factors: my personal credentials (I was well educated with a
Masters degree in Literature-in-English), my political background
(I had been in politics since 1982 and had even been a personal
secretary to the then Deputy Governor of Old Ondo State, Chief Akin
Omoboriowo. Since then I had interacted with some of Nigeria’s
biggest political juggernauts), my business experience (I had
managed people and resources from medium scale to high level), my
global exposure (I had been blessed with access to world figures at
home and abroad) and crucially, I now had what I thought were my
greatest assets, the youths of Nigeria. But my dream of leading
Nigeria out of the doldrums soon vanished.

The youths mostly teased and taunted me as inexperienced and
poor. They preferred the calibre of people they claimed had
pilfered, looted and wasted their common wealth – politicians with
very loaded pockets. These are people who could instantly daze and
dazzle them with cash which represents only a token of what they’ve
stolen, and later abandon them and for good measure impoverish
society at large. I could not believe my ears and my eyes as I
watched developments with incredulity. I was too idealistic about a
revolution foretold which became nothing but a mirage. I refused to
join the mainstream parties in my naïve belief that the duo of PDP
and AC had been substantially contaminated and we should start on a
cleaner note. There is no doubt that the biggest party in Nigeria
remains the unheralded and unregistered Floaters Party, comprising,
of mainly, the most vocal but reticent youths in Africa. Anyway, I
lost the election but learnt a lot of incredible lessons from the
experience and exposure.

Fellow Nigerians, I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh when
I got a call early this week from Ambassador Dayo Israel, one of
the brightest youths I had mentored in my own modest way some years
ago. It was a plaintive cry for help after the debacle of a failed
local government chairmanship aspiration bid and the death knell of
the campaign for youth emancipation in the Senate.

Dayo has since those halcyon days, when he came under my
tutelage, worked very hard to be an iconic youth in Nigeria and
beyond. Dayo recently threw his hat into the political ring
recently when he attempted to pick the APC Chairmanship nomination
for Lagos Mainland Local Government, to contest today against other
Lagos Mainland Chairmanship aspirants in that Local Government of
Lagos State. As you read my epistle right now, the election is
taking place as scheduled but without Dayo’s name on the ballot
papers.

Dayo had requested my intervention, several times in the last
few months, for help with his political aspiration. He took his
case to the high and mighty in our society and solicited the
support of political godfathers in his party, APC. There is no
doubt that Dayo is eminently qualified to run in this race and I
was reasonably assured that he would deliver on most of the
promises made by him. However, the arithmetic of politics in
Nigeria, and in most places, is not always one plus one. The way
these things are configured often make it impossible for brilliant
young guys like Dayo to have a smooth sail in political climes like
Nigeria. Ask me! I had my own Baptism of fire in 2011 when I got
inspired by the audacity and miracle of Barack Obama in the United
States of America and assumed foolishly that such could be
replicated back home in Nigeria. Lord have mercy, I was dead
wrong.

I had predicated my faith and boundless optimism on several
factors: my personal credentials (I was well educated with a
Masters degree in Literature-in-English), my political background
(I had been in politics since 1982 and had even been a personal
secretary to the then Deputy Governor of Old Ondo State, Chief Akin
Omoboriowo. Since then I had interacted with some of Nigeria’s
biggest political juggernauts), my business experience (I had
managed people and resources from medium scale to high level), my
global exposure (I had been blessed with access to world figures at
home and abroad) and crucially, I now had what I thought were my
greatest assets, the youths of Nigeria. But my dream of leading
Nigeria out of the doldrums soon vanished.

The youths mostly teased and taunted me as inexperienced and
poor. They preferred the calibre of people they claimed had
pilfered, looted and wasted their common wealth – politicians with
very loaded pockets. These are people who could instantly daze and
dazzle them with cash which represents only a token of what they’ve
stolen, and later abandon them and for good measure impoverish
society at large. I could not believe my ears and my eyes as I
watched developments with incredulity. I was too idealistic about a
revolution foretold which became nothing but a mirage. I refused to
join the mainstream parties in my naïve belief that the duo of PDP
and AC had been substantially contaminated and we should start on a
cleaner note. There is no doubt that the biggest party in Nigeria
remains the unheralded and unregistered Floaters Party, comprising,
of mainly, the most vocal but reticent youths in Africa. Anyway, I
lost the election but learnt a lot of incredible lessons from the
experience and exposure.