There has been a lot of talk about setting up a political party with a focus on Nigerian youths but @Saratu has made it clear that setting up a political party is not an easy task and most importantly, a strong political party cannot be built from social media.
In the following tweets, @Saratu educates us on how political parties actually work.
See tweets below:
All of you talking about creating new political parties, I hope it's not from Twitter you're hoping to seek voters for your local elections.
— Yung S'Challa (@saratu) August 10, 2016
people don’t understand the logistical nightmare party mgmt is. From ward level on up, so many people to manage with divergent interests.
— S. (@saratu) August 10, 2016
Plus, getting a critical mass of people who think like you is too much to ask. The trick is progress, IN SPITE of divergent interests.
— S. (@saratu) August 10, 2016
Any party anywhere in the world is an agglomeration of interests. The problem is Nigerians get bogged down, unable to see the greater good.
— S. (@saratu) August 10, 2016
I’ve had the opportunity to work with women and youth leaders at local level in different parties. It’s not easy. I have respect for them.
— S. (@saratu) August 10, 2016
These people do yeoman’s work with little resources allocated to their offices. They have to smile at stupid, ignorant govs to get any $
— S. (@saratu) August 10, 2016
There’s nothing systematised for them, often no budgets. But they do their organising work and make do. Women and youth get no respect.
— S. (@saratu) August 10, 2016
And political party bigwigs starve women and youth of funding because they don’t want them to use their organising for themselves
— S. (@saratu) August 10, 2016
So these women and youth are the backbone of these parties’ organising power, but bigwigs have the money to anoint.
— S. (@saratu) August 10, 2016
And I don’t mean to cast easy divisions. Many youth and women are too short-sighted to move towards organising for their own greater good.
— S. (@saratu) August 10, 2016
Jeez. Even just the processes of these parties. I don’t like to talk about work, so I’ll leave stories of experiences off my TL for now.
— S. (@saratu) August 10, 2016
But suffice to say, the Naija Twitter massive is not a constituency. Don’t be fooled. And no party can be run with us as its focus.
— S. (@saratu) August 10, 2016
And even if it were possible to start a party focusing on Nigerians like us, we’d still fail. We can’t even move past 2015-elex bitterness!
— S. (@saratu) August 10, 2016
Folks can barely form consensus on Twitter, but they want to go to local communities and talk to different stakeholders? LOL!
— S. (@saratu) August 10, 2016
Many people on here have no experience interacting with people outside of their income bracket, but they want to successfully do outreach.
— S. (@saratu) August 10, 2016
The people who are wayyyy more qualified than most of us are already out there organising. Win them over. Fund them. Start there. Not here.
— S. (@saratu) August 10, 2016
The people who are wayyyy more qualified than most of us are already out there organising. Win them over. Fund them. Start there. Not here.
— S. (@saratu) August 10, 2016
One of the best decisions I made when I moved home was to quit journalism and work in civil society. So many don’t know Nigeria at all
— S. (@saratu) August 10, 2016
I just can’t get over the hubris of looking at political party organising in a country like Nigeria and scoffing, “I can do that, easy!”
— S. (@saratu) August 10, 2016
Our current crop of leaders are so bad, we actually forget that being effectively managing a huge civil society or any system is WORK.
— S. (@saratu) August 10, 2016
Let me stop there jare
— S. (@saratu) August 10, 2016
Thank you very much, auntie
@saratu hope its not another scam to woo youths for 2019