Nigeria: Enough Is Enough - Looking back

Some opinions looking in

First of all and from the beginning I was quite heartened by the Enough Is Enough project which gathered the youth of Nigeria on a march on the National Assembly.

However, I was not particularly taken by the demands they made or the questions they asked because none of them looked like they could be answered and to say the least I felt they were a bit timid.

If I were in Nigeria, I probably would have taken part in the march and with the other people I have chatted to about the rally who are outside the country we probably are far from the cauldron but we do not lack insight and hopefully there are ways in which we might be able to contribute and get more involved in future rallies.

Good 1^st step

The achievements of the rally on the face of it are the ability to muster support for certain goals and when confronted by the usually obsequious to power and unaccountable security personnel they were able to withstand their menace and break through the barricades.

I believe the goals of that rally not only involved giving politicians notice that a youth constituency exists that has a voice, but to deliver a letter to the leaders of the National Assembly declaring their purpose.

From what I read, the leaders of the National Assembly were not available to give them an audience and certain of the security apparatus had already ruffled the feathers of some of the organisers but without success before the rally – the fact is the leadership knew but decided to disregard the import of the rally or acknowledge the discontent they represented.

However, it did transpire that some representative did come out to speak to them and they refused to engage him and in the process the letter taken to the National Assembly was not submitted.

Forcing the issue effectively

Seeing that the rally did include some somewhat influential Nigerians, I am disappointed that those people did not find ways of engaging some senior National Assembly person to take the letter to the leadership whilst at the same time have that letter published in national newspapers to ensure that the authorities cannot duck the issue with that common Nigerian cop-out of not being briefed.

At the time of the rally, it appeared the Twitter social networking site had the #EnoughIsEnough tag trending at number 3, an achievement you might say until you saw the content that I was compelled to post a tweet.

forakin Can this #enoughisenough campaign return to its purpose? Truth, direction, purpose and leadership - Suppose that is what it is. 4 days ago from Power Twitter.

It had to, every kind of triviality was posted, the popularity and trending was not a focused voice on the object and there was no quality to the postings even though it made the news.

A qualified success

Anyway, the rally in my view was a qualified success, some of my more youthful contacts have considered getting involved in any new plans for rallies with the hope that the ideas and demands would put them ahead of the curve.

I want to be blown away by the vision of those who come after me with whatever contribution I make being just a moderating influence, if needed – I will be so glad for our youth be so ahead of me in the promise of a place called Nigeria, I am sorry to say, the last time whilst I was happy, I was not altogether impressed.