Opinion: #NotTooYoungToRun | The indispensable role of political parties

by Jude Feranmi

The objective of this piece is simple

  • To get you to join a political party if you are really interested in changing society and
  • To let you know what to expect and the options you have if/when you finally do

From the inception of time (using J.J Rosseau’s state of nature as a reference), the only way by which societies have changed course, from a way of life to another is through the hard, painstaking process of organising people of like minds to come together and impose their ideas/ideology on the rest of the people either by force or by fiat or by claims to divine validation or by consensus or by the ballot.

The ways by which this objective is achieved might change with time and the dominant ideas in different epochs. What remains constant is that people of like minds will have to come together and organise. In a democracy, seeing that participation is by the people, organising is even much harder.

Before anyone can bring about any meaningful societal change tailored around certain ideas – whether more welfare for the people or a hard stance approach at getting people to be disciplined – especially through a democratic process, one must have to go through a political party and this is an either/or scenario.

We either go through a political party or forgo whatever anger/ideas we have about making lives better for everyone.

Now, like I like to say, not everyone is going to be a member of a political party and not everyone who votes for a party at the polls is going to be a member of a political party.

Having said this, what is imperative is that political parties are the vehicles for social and political change and the kind of governance witnessed in a society is an offshoot of the kind of ideas that are paraded and entertained in a society’s dominant parties. A political party that enshrines and prioritises Federal Character above competence and meritocracy, for example, canNOT run a government that considers merit over where a citizen comes from. It defies Logic

Most of us who are excited about the #NotTooYoungToRun Campaign are more often than not  fencists who think with the influx of younger Nigerians who understand the stakes of the future and will be a part of it, things might be better. We then ironically shy away from the existing political parties with mundane excuses like what the ideology is or what the prospects are or the kind and calibre of people in those parties.

Maybe this needs to be said over and over again, We can NOT change society without a “vehicle” that brings those who think like us together, in this case, a political party.

It is not enough to want political change for the better. It is not enough to want to make a difference in one’s society. It is not enough to WANT anything. We MUST go through the process of DOING what it takes to ensure that what we want is achieved.

The best of us as a generation are currently hiding behind our workplaces, occupation and a host of other reasons. What is even ironic is that most Nigerians in the civil society championing great advocacy, charity, social impact do not belong to political parties. LIVES don’t get better by sitting on the fence.

If we must use the resources available in elected political offices and the state to better people’s lives, what it takes is not just engaging policy makers or elected officials or ranting on social media or winning an argument at a newspaper stand, we must move to the next step of organising like minds in a political party that will attempt to impose our ideas on society so it can be better.

It’s time to STOP getting angry the empty way. We MUST now, especially as a generation start to look into channelling our anger and ideas and arguments into instruments that can really bring about political change.

There are of course political party dynamics which change from party to party. I address that in the next article in this series

Power is NOT served a la carte ~ Asiwaju Bola Tinubu

 


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

Jude ‘Feranmi is the National Youth Leader, KOWA party

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