Young Nigerians should support Ezekwesili’s political agenda, not condemn it

I crave your indulgence to copiously reproduce her comments below.

“I have a political agenda for 2019 Elections”, Oby tweeted. “It is that neither APC nor its twin brother (yes, how does 6 differ from half a dozen?) PDP should win the 2019 State and Federal legislative and executive Elections. I am totally committed to this Agenda.

“I am committed to this political agenda because we must disrupt and end the political and governance stagnation and retrogression that our cyclical low equilibrium political Russian Roulette has cost our country and people. Enough is really Enough.

“I tweeted at the end of 2017 that one will commit significant part of my 2018 to building the political consciousness of citizens to end the reign of the status quo decadent political class. This for me is the when all citizens lift their RED CARD.

“My political agenda is simple. I shall actively campaign against APC and PDP in the 2019 elections except in rare cases where they field new minds with strong record of public interest. I shall actively campaign for the best candidates of all other parties in the elections.

“My individual effort to campaign against APC and PDP in the 2019 elections may not amount to much, but it is at least a definite expression of my personal conviction. My conviction is that it is time to end the tyranny of rulership of a wicked minority political elite class.

“Whether many other citizens feel the way one feels about our political status quo does not matter. Standing up for what I believe is what one was raised to epitomize. It is sickening to watch the repetition of similar pattern of bad behaviour by our political class. Enough!!”

Unfair backlash

Oby’s tweets have earned her unfair umbrage and backlash from young Nigerians who subscribe to the non-existent ideological bent of the two major political parties in the land. She’s been condemned for serving as minister in a PDP government, labelled a hypocrite, called names for her stand and resolve; and almost hung to dry.

To think that the persons castigating Oby for her political agenda are young Nigerians whose country has been raped by a greedy ruling elite since 1960--the same elite Oby condemned in her tweets--and you begin to get a picture of how far down the wagon we have fallen as a people.

This is not so much Stockholm syndrome as it is a devilish brainwashing by the elite who have made young Nigerians to be content with the proverbial crumbs falling from the master’s table.

Oby’s position may not be pragmatic. It may sound quixotic, but that shouldn’t take away the force and impact that it should convey.

Nor should we question a personal conviction whose time has come.

Breaking free from establishment

Oby’s tweets aren’t saying everyone in the PDP and APC are devils or that the saints can only be found elsewhere, if I read her correctly. All she’s saying is that Nigerians must take their country back from the establishment by rallying behind outsiders who at this point stand no chance.

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She’s basically saying it’s time for everyone who loves Nigeria to look beyond the two entrenched political parties and their moneybags. Oby’s tweets come from the place of a mother who realises that her children can do a lot better if they only set their minds to it and break free from the forces holding them down.

With Nigeria’s huge youth demography, who says young Nigerians can’t elect one of their own as president in 2019? Where exactly is it written that they can't?

As we march toward 2019, we should borrow from the Oby mindset. If everyone says they’ll be handing the establishment a red card, the establishment and everyone may well sit up and begin to work for the good of the country. Thus far, the establishment has shown that it can’t take its beak off the treasure trough for its own greed.

To condemn Oby for what were a set of tweets conveying the way everyone should feel about our country at the moment, is to be unforgivably myopic.