by Lai Labode

“The future of every nation is written many years earlier in the hearts of its youth.”  – Lai Labode

I became the Chairman of the PDP Youth Circuit after a difficult but successful merger with the League of Young Democrats led by Chief Raymond Dokpesi jnr, a true patriot who later became my deputy. After one of our late night meetings we sat down to ponder on the challenges we faced in our bid to open a new chapter in Nigeria’s history of youth participation in politics and leadership under the umbrella of Africa’s largest political party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

We pondered into the night how to inspire 10 million Nigerian youths and Persons Living With Disabilities to join the PDP and help to start a new era of transparency, responsiveness, institutionalization of clear party ideology and full blown democratic practices. We peeped into the future together and saw a new PDP that became the new rallying point for all Nigerians who want change, good governance and enduring progress.

We were saddened that our party like other political parties has not been able to effectively connect with the aspirations of the ordinary NIGERIAN after all these years.

We worried greatly about the poor management of Nigeria’s political systems and the ease with which youths are used to destroy their own future by politicians. We agreed that all Nigeria’s political parties needed urgent reforms and the youth urgently needed a new orientation to harness its potential to facilitate the change.

We realized how much Nigerian youths are largely individual champions who know very little about so much in an age where information comes at a phenomenally fast-pace and makes proper processing painfully difficult.

We easily agreed how shameful the Nigerian opposition parties have faired in their narrow comfort zones of either a one man, ethnic or religious party politics. We discussed ACN and its seeming good records in Lagos and wondered if the largest financial short change of the people in Africa’s history isn’t happening under the watch of Nigeria’s most ‘performing’ ACN governor.

We touched on the power of social media, its challenges, illusions, limitations and most importantly its unprecedented, unparalleled potential as a platform that can be used to inspire millions of people to take actions associated with the need for change.

We concluded that Nigeran youths from all works of life needed to start a ‘Political Participation Revolution’ if they really want to quicken the pace of change and set Nigeria on a ‘never to return path of glory’.

We identified the following six items as most crucial for real change to occur;

 

1.  Strategic and Organized ‘Invasion’ of all Nigeria’s Political Parties by youths.

2. Support the Establishment of the Coalition of Youths in Nigeria’s Political Parties to set and manage the standard of youth participation in politics and leadership.

3. Establish clear ideological bases within the political parties and push for institutionalization of ideas that fall along agreed ideological lines.

4. Establish a funding structure that is sustained by the ordinary people who share established ideology.

5.  Invest in massive, comprehensive voter education on participation, responsibility and patriotism.

6. Establish debate platforms across the country for cross fertilization of ideas.

Are the people really ready for change you may ask? The truth is that the people have always been ready. History has thought us that the power of the people can be unleashed for positive action by a genuine firm and visionary leadership that runs strictly on the fuel of majority consent of the followers and good example.

We owe a duty to Nigerians yet unborn to build a nation founded on truth, justice, fairness and most importantly on ethics or values we are not ashamed to publicly propagate.

The time has come for the youths to take a stand, organize and make sacrifices. Enough of the fault finding and bickering about how bad the leaders are.

I have no doubt in my heart that Nigerian youths will eventually rise to the occasion. Social media is helping to build political consciousness and expression as never seen before in our nation’s history. It has become the gasoline of change delicately waiting for a fire to start.

We all cannot be politicians but we all have different roles to play if we must guarantee a prosperous future for ourselves and generations of Nigerians to come. We all need to do something; join a political party or some association, register to vote or write a blog, join peaceful protests and civil actions.

We have begun that process in the PDP. We encourage all youths who have soft spot for any other political party to do same. We see hope. Do you?

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Lai Labode is the CEO of Salt & Einstein Ltd., a visionary business logic firm with vast experience of the peculiar African emerging markets. Lai is an alumnus of the prestigious Harvard Business School where he received certificates in corporate restructuring, Mergers & Acquisitions, Negotiation and Strategic Agility. He is the Chairman of PDP Youth Circuit and President of the People’s Senate. Lai also chairs the National Youth Movement for Constitutional Review. Lai is the Author of the 20 Laws of Democracy and Constellation of Thoughts. He is married to Ijeoma and they are blessed with two boys, Salt & Einstein.

 

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