PERSPECTIVE When i was as little as maybe five years old, i was very inqiusitive about how the universe came to be, about God, man and other creations of nature. Growing up, i learnt that nature was a mystery and how it came to be is purely metaphysical and beyond the grasp of human intellect. This made me channel my energy more into trying to understand the human psyche. I tried to read minds and prayed to God to give me psychic ability to know exactly what people are thinking. But that prayer too did not come to pass, until the advent of social media. The social media have come with many advantages. For some of us who are not fully employed, we most times keep our idle minds busy by browsing via social networks such as facebook, twitter excetera. Interracting with people on social media is a very interresting expirience. I would say ive learnt much more about human psychology on social media in a short span of five years than my over twenty years on the outside world. Facebook for instance have been my greatest tutor. Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg for bringing to us this brilliant concept. It is through facebook that ive come to understand people better, as it provides a sneak-peek into the innermost minds of people; how they think and why they think that way. Recently, public opinion via social media is gradually replacing opinion polls as the results collected are very similar.That is to say that with social media, one does not need any magic wand or special psychic ability to decipher the views and positions of our present day youth on matters partianing our future and development as a people. Let me clarify here that my point is only narrowed to opinionative posts and the comments that follow. Before i go into the main focus of this write-up, it is important to note that Nigeria is in a bad situation. Every youth understands that. The first question now is, how do we surmount our challenges and make this country better? If I am asked this question, the answer is simple. REVOLUTION! Yes, I know the weight this word carry but what i mean is an ETHICAL REVOUTION; A complete change from our haphazard way of doing things. Can we do it? No! we cannot, if all we do is rail insults on each other on social media rather than discuss issues that directly affect us and YES, if we take our destiny into our hands, make vital sacrifices and unite together and fight the oppressor. The recent spree of political activity have triggered so much excitement. The social media is no exception. Infact politics is the dominant subject and is discussed more openly. With the recent conclusion of Party primaries and the kickoff of campaigns by political parties and aspirants, its almost impossible to log on to facebook and not see any political post. Most (if not all) the aspirants have launched their campaign on social media.It is very unfurtunate that to some of these people, its a do or die affair, its a must win for them. Many of them have been tested before through the office positions they have held in the past or prior to contesting and have failed woefully by every standard. Yet, these are the people who enjoy more support from the poor impoverished masses especially the youth. One would wonder why it is so. Reading opinions of people via comments and posts on social media, i attempted to group these opinions into five cardinal beliefs: The first group believe in the winning team. They always follow and support whoever they think has a better chance of success irrespective of the persons credibilty or mode on which he is goin to succeed. There is this saying that if you cannot beat them, you join them. To this group of people, leaders are appointed by God and even if they perform below expectation, its still in line with Gods design. They believe all political office holders achieve one or more monumental successes during their days in office and hence focus more on what they should gain from the system. They engage in sycophance and mudslinging and are usually bitter when confronted with opposing views. Try as much as possible not to argue with this group of people because you may become their enemy. There are some people who believe that the two leading poitical parties are are not different since they are made of same people jumping or decamping from one to the other. This is rather unfortunate but the truth is we are gradually getting there. As we make steady progress, ideologies are gradually evolving. The differences between the two parties for example are coming out more clearer. One of the political parties believes corruption is our major problem and the system needs to be sanitised; the rule of law and entrenchment of strong democratic values is key to our development while the other party believes that corruption is not a problem, rather massive infrastructural development vis-a-vis stomach infrastructure should do the magic. The other group is i siddon de look. To them politics is for the scum; the retards, agberos, corrupt and dirty-minded. They refuse to engage in the political process believing that votes never count and the cabal always have their way in the end. Some actually feel that politics have no impact on their personal lives. Another group of people are the blind followers. I must say this group constitute a very large chunk. They care not about the credibility or credence of the person they support but see governance as a chop make another person chop arrangement. Sentiments are key in their assesing of candidates; religion, ethnicity, family and friendship. They always complain about unfavored zoning, disruption of zoning arrangement etc. The last group is the group of the progressively minded. Some of the people in this group are very emmotional too but the difference between them and those of the first group is they deliberately avoid speaking out, commenting or expressing their own views on an arguement, rather they result to using the like post to support other persons views which are similar to theirs. They are open minded but they get bitter too when they percieve that a post or comment is borne out of bias. From my own perspective, i think people need to change thier overall view of DEMOCRACY and GOVERNANCE. In a democratic setting, the state is similar to a business enterprise. The masses are the owners or shareholders. Lets take the Nigerian state as an illustrative example. The Nigerian masses are the owners of the state and the federal government is the management team headed by the president. The contract of management is subject to renewal after every four years. The contract can also be terminated at any time if there is a breach in the terms under which it was signed (in this case resignation or impeachment). In this contract, the constitution is the guide or charter all the parties should adher to. People in government at all levels should be answerable to the people. They should never forget that the country belongs to the masses. In a democracy, the ultimate power should be vested in the people and not the government. I think we got it all wrong right from the start. To me, a governor, president or whosoever has no right to appoint his successor as he too was only appointed to serve for a time. According to Alan Moore People shouldnt be afraid of their government, rather the Governments should be afraid of their people A word is enough for the wise!
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 09:40:20 +0000
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