by Mercy Abang

Bankole Eniola is our feature for the week and he is a Nigerian policy
advocate based in London- He is passionate about developing economies and
most especially the nation of his birth, Nigeria. Bankole’s ideas about
policy advocacy and communal participation in nation building led him to
initiate Nigeria Dialogue in 2011. Bankole talks about the Nigeria Dialogue
platform which serves as a hub for progressive intellectuals who intend to challenge systemic and institutional realities in Nigeria, his organizations target to get 40 million young Nigerians and plans ahead of the 2015 elections for this weeks Conversations with Abang Mercy among other issues.

Tell us about Nigeria Dialogue

Nigeria Dialogue is a hub of progressive intellectuals who intend to
challenge systemic and institutional realities in Nigeria. The goal of this
initiative is to serve as the conduit to facilitate the effective
transformation of Nigeria into a developed and prosperous nation. It is a
platform where forward thinking Nigerians proffer inputs into sustainable
economic, infrastructural and social development through meaningful
dialogues and measurable actions.

You said Nigeria Dialogue is a hub for progressive intellectuals who
intend to challenge systemic and institutional realities in Nigeria. What’s your definition of Progressive?

A progressive is someone who feels our villages should be a bit better,
someone who when he does simple things like going to the toilet always
makes sure he is able to flush, thats a progressive. A progressive is
someone who looks at structure or a society and says, ‘I want to make it
better’. So a progressive is anyone who wants more from an existing system.
So anyone who is discontent with the way Nigeria is will fit into the build
of people we want to attract to Nigerian dialogue.

You are a group of intelligent Nigerians, with the idea of bringing change to Nigeria – one person at a time. What about the unintelligent?

I dont think there is anybody who is un-intelligent in Nigeria, and i will
quote Albert Einstein there. He said: ” If you judge the ability of a fish
by its capacity to walk, every fish will be called foolish, but when you
put it to water, you see its genius”. Everybody when they find their place
in society is intelligent, so every Nigerian is intelligent, we just need
to create enough opportunities for them to thrive.

Should I say your group is a gathering of Young Nigerians only in the Diaspora?

This question come up a lot. I know people who have accused me on Facebook,
of living 6,000miles away and trying to change Nigeria. But the truth is,
you just have to think of some of the greatest advocates of change ever.
Moses was a prince in Egypt, he was an Isrealite, a Jew. Joseph was a Jew
he was in Egypt. Basically at different times, life will be transient you
need to go to different plces. So that you can see what is available, and
the you can come back to your people and say, this is the new frontier,
this is where we need to go. When you read the Nigerian Dialogues mission
statement you’ll find out that we have the Nigerian dialogue in London, we
have in New-York, we have in Lagos. The whole idea of 2014 is to galvanize
the Nigerian arm of Nigerian Dialogue to be able to start working within
the communities in Nigeria. Because i think it is until the rubber hits the
road, that is when Nigerians will begin to feel the impact of the benefit
of the dialogue we are having.

In fifteen years, you intend to get to a point to generate the needed
momentum to drive change. Can you outline what you will be doing when you have the desired number, assuming you already do?

Forty million is not a lot. I want you to think about life the way i see
it, or the way i think Kwame Nkrumah will see it, or Nnamdi Azikiwe or
Awolowo and Tafewa Balewa. We see life as a place filled with
possibilities. First, why forty million? This figure is a critical mass
within Nigeria, because we have a population of about 160million and we
have a population of about 60million that can vote at any point in time. If
you have 40million of that, that means you have about 60 to 70 percent of
the voting population and when they become educated and enlightened, then
they can make informed decisions. So thats where the forty million comes
from.
Why do we need 15years to get 40million, because we know that we cannot get
forty million people in one day, but if we build a structure, if we keep
working hard in everyday and putting in the grind, we will convince them
one after the other, and get the forty million mark.

Now what does that forty million mark do for us? That forty million gives
us the leverage that we need on the political class. Just think about it
this way, if a politician is pushing a bill for education like ‘every child
in Nigeria should go to school’ and this forty million critical mass can
galvanize themself and begin to say we want it to be a part of our
constitution that any parent who does not allow their child to go to school
will be prosecuted. Because of that mass we now have, we can make it law.
So the question is what we want to feed this critical mass, do we want to
feed them with facts, do we want to feed them with information to help them
make informed decisions? that is the real question facing the dialogue. I
was speaking to Okonjo Iweala, and she said the future of Nigeria is
already with the youths, because we have over 70million Nigerians under a
particular demography. That is where it comes from, we already know what
the United Nation says about this figure, so the question is, what do we do
with this figure.

Nigeria Dialogue aims to be a platform to generate conversations that will shape the future of our nation. How can a nation future be shaped through conversations?

Because that conversation is a conversation of the future not a
conversation of the past. So for instance, you will never catch a Nigerian
dialogue session where we are talking about like tribalism, like ethnicity
or so on. We want to talk about future cities, the future of our education,
how are we going to develop our education in such a way that we can compete
with kids growing up in other parts of the world. This is a classic example
i always share with people, the kids that are going to school today in
Singapore, in England and Ghana, all of them will grow up at the same time
with those currently living in Abuja, in Maiduguri or Abia and they are
going to compete for the same jobs in the future.

Now we are talking about schools where we dont have loops. People are
talking about building new technologies to compete in the future. How do we
want to have a balanced discussion in the future? How can we structure a
society like this and not be a slave in the future because we are not well
prepared for it? So our conversation is about the future, its about where
do we go from here? How do we plan for Nigeria in 30years? What would our
federal system look like in 30years? What would our education look like in
30 years, what are the goals we are setting for healthcare in 30years? What
would the infrastructure look like? Are we thinking about new cities? What
are the plans? So those are the kinds of conversations we are having in
Nigerian dialogue.

What is Nigeria Dialogue doing differently from Enough is Enough Nigeria?
I want to believe you know EiE. It is a coalition of individuals and
youth-led organizations committed to instituting a culture of good
governance and public accountability in Nigeria through advocacy, activism.

There is a difference between activism and policy development. Activism
talks about the issues, policy development cracks the issue into a systemic
process that can be implemented. That is what we do. We develop policies,
we work on blue prints, we work on white papers, we work with the people in
government to implement them, that is the different thing we do. But we
also have relationships with Enough is Enough. We work with organizations
within Nigeria that do work we consider progressive, which is good. But
much more importantly we are focused on developing what we consider a
topical issue into a policy that can be delivered to the people of Nigeria.

Eniola Bankole, you are the brain behind Nigeria dialogue and you are based in the UK. How can you change Nigeria outside Nigeria?

You cannot change Nigeria from the Diaspora? At some point i have to come
back.

When are you coming back to Nigeria, and how do you think what you are pushing from the diaspora is accepted in Nigeria?

What we are doing is already affecting what is happening here. This year
alone, we have worked with Honorable Abike Dabiri, who is in charge of
Diaspora affairs to talk about the role of Diaspora in Nigeria’s
constitution. We are doing work at the moment, but you see that is probably
1% of the work. The real work is when we go into the Nigerian communities.
When we go into places in Borno State, where there are no roads, because
the truth is that this forty million people we need must come from every
geographical location within Nigeria. So its important and we are looking
at doing that.

Can we change Nigeria from the Diaspora? No. Am i coming back? Yes, 100%.
Are my team members in London, or New-York come too? I’m not sure if the
whole team will come. Because i am thinking about developed cities like
India, i am using India as an example because it is very similar to us in
terms of ethnicity, Brazil too. What we have realized is that the hub of
Brazilians who are moving Foreign Direct Investment into Brasil still
reside in US and Europe. So i wont say every Nigerian when Nigeria becomes
what we hope it will be, should just ship and come back, because there will
always be a need to have these people in those places.

How can young Nigerians change the system when status quo is still in place, with the continuous recycling of political characters?

We will break that point when we get that forty million. At the moment,
those people control the forty million. I will take a quote from Game of
Thrones where a character says: What is power? If power were to be on the
battle field, people will worship generals, but they dont even those
generals bow their knees to kings. Why? Because power is where people
perceive power to be. At the moment, people like IBB or Obasanjo control
Nigeria, because they control the forty million Nigerians who will change
policies to their favor or to do whatsoever they want, and i dont have a
personal problem with people like that. But if we do what we are supposed
to do, we would have succeeded in generating a new power base, and that
will be the future of a developed Nigeria.

Many believe young Nigerians will never take to revolution, no matter how tough it gets, the people will adjust.. What do you say?

Mercy where are you from?

Abang Mercy: Cross River State.

I want to say you are not 35 years of age yet.

Abang Mercy: Not yet.

So you did not see the civil war. Do you know what wars does to young boys?
It makes them men. The people who advocate for a revolution have never seen
war, they only see it on television. Wars are not things to joke about.
The real question is how can we progress Nigeria without a revolution? We
can do this by changing the power base of people who make decisions. If we
change our politics from the politics of sentiment, of tribalism and
religion, to one of issues and Mercy comes to me to campaign, and she says:
This is how i am going to govern your state when i become governor, this is
how i am going to get my funding, this is how i am going to deliver, and
makes promises and after four years, she doesn’t deliver, but we have this
forty million people in place, guess what will happen we will vote her out
of power.

What in your opinion will be that “breaking point” for Nigerians?

The point is when we re-draw the political map. If you say the breaking
point as the point for change, because am quiet careful about using words
like breaking point, because somebody will read this and take breaking
point as saying we want to break Nigeria, but no thats not what we are
talking about. If we are talking about the moment where true change will
come to Nigeria, it is the moment when we suddenly realise the power in the
people of Nigeria. That moment when our votes begin to count.

Nigeria dialogue is a non-profit social Advocacy platform for young minds.What are your plans ahead of the 2015 general elections?

Ahead of 2015, we are going to start a campaign called ‘The Politics of
issues’. We are also going to do a road tour to 25 higher institutions
acrossNigeria. I have people who have told me this is elitist, how come you
are going to higher institutions? What is going to happen to the brick
layers, the barbers, the shoemakers and people who dont have access to that
level of education. My advice to them is that it will trickle down the set.
Let us start from the institutions. Let us start from the next generation
of young Nigerians who are coming out of institutions. Who are going to be
the next generations workers.

Your team is made of Bankers, lawyers, branding and communications expert, philosophers, scientists, social entrepreneurs, doctors, engineers. What are the practical things you will do differently if given an opportunity to govern Nigeria?

To govern Nigeria the first thing we need to do is what some of my senior
friends who have worked within the government, did to get the job done.
They brought expertise to work. There is one woman i won’t mention, they
call her ‘Due Process’. I am sure by using the word due process you may
know the person i am talking about, because someone brought her expertise
to bear in the position of power

When you think about the capitalization of the banks, it was a professional
that sat on top of that and made sure it happened. What i am saying is,
when we give people who are trained to do the work, what we give ourselves
the opportunity of delivering quality, and you cannot understate the
importance of excellence when people are committed to it.