No Structure: How young Nigerians led a revolution that disrupted the political status quo
It all began in October 2020 when young Nigerians started to gather in tens at the Lekki area of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, to call for EndSARS, then the number kept increasing. Like an Olympic torch, other areas – Ikeja also in Lagos, Ibadan in Oyo state, Abuja, Delta, Rivers and Edo state, also caught the spark, and protests turned revolution by young Nigerians spread across major cities in the West African country.
They were all united by one cause – a demand for an end to a notorious police unit infamous for brutality, extortion and extrajudicial killings. Its victims were young people. Whether you’re a child of the high or low, no young person was sure of safety. Being a young person was almost a crime and every young person was a target of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). Those with good phones, who dress well and drive a car are easily labelled fraudsters and armed robbers.
The son of a former Minister of Communication, Omobola Johnson, was also a victim of SARS impunity. The SARS virus was a no-respecter of status. In 2020, young Nigerians decided enough was enough and took to the streets, raising their voices to demand EndSARS. The government was forced to listen and announced the total ban of SARS when it saw it was not business as usual.
But the young citizens wanted more, the subtext embedded under their EndSARS demand was a call for a working system that ensures there are jobs and every citizen is safe. It wasn’t too much to ask for, but the government responded by sending soldiers to the Lekki toll gate to disperse the protesters. The aftermath was the Lekki massacre.
The protests and the government’s response with violence planted the seeds of political consciousness among the young citizens which, two years later, disrupted the Nigerian political status quo and sent chills down the spine of the political class.
A Neusroom survey which polled 7000 young Nigerians in 2020 to feel the pulse of the nation and predict through data, what direction and shape the political leadership of the country could take in the 2023 elections revealed that the young citizens have a large distrust for the political class and were in search of respectable personalities who can serve as a bridge between the older and younger generation of Nigerians, and they can also trust with leadership.
Sam Adeyemi, Peter Obi and Oby Ezekwesili ticked the boxes. When in May 2022 Obi announced his exit from the PDP to run for President under the Labour Party, seen as a neutral party, he automatically became the new bride of young Nigerians who Neusroom’s poll revealed were in search of respectable personalities in public office. His supporters named Obidients started a movement that took the social media space by storm as they campaign for Obi.
Young Nigerians make up about 70% of Nigeria’s over 200 million people and data from Nigeria’s electoral body – the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) revealed that young people within the 18-34 age brackets make up about 40% (37 million) of the 93.4 million registered voters. With internet and smartphones, they sustained their EndSARS and Lekki massacre anger against the government and political class and continued to galvanise other young citizens, daily sensitising them about politics and governance. They promised that with their votes they will force the older generation of politicians into retirement after holding on to power for more than 40 years while the nation remains a toddler after more than 60 years of independence.
But the political class made a mockery of their authority in politics, saying they had no political structure to win a presidential election and can’t build one in just eight months to the election. They ridiculed the Obidient movement, tagged them social media noise makers and swore that their candidate – Peter Obi won’t get up to two million votes from the 87 million voters who had picked up their Permanent Voters Card (PVC) to vote in the election. The political class constantly reminded the young citizens that ‘lessons will be learnt’ from the 2023 presidential elections that will let them know politics is not played on social media. Lessons were indeed learnt, but reverse was the case.
“You can’t start and be at the top, you need to start from the bottom. Labour Party is not going anywhere,” Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the PDP said in an interview with the BBC. “Let the youths vote for them.”
Nasir El-Rufai, an APC governor in the northern state of Kaduna, constantly mocked Obi’s supporters as social media trolls. Like many other politicians, El-Rufai discarded pre-election pollsters showing Obi as the favourite candidate of many Nigerians.
Reacting to a tweet mocking Obi in October 2022, he tweeted “Please let the delusion of the Obidients remain intact until the electorate speaks louder and clearer than Twitter trolls in February 2023, by the Grace of God. – #elrufai.”
In August 2022, he also mocked a plan by Obi’s supporters to hold a two-million-man march in the state.
“I hope you get two hundred persons on the streets, including those ‘imports’ that can’t open their shops on Mondays, and came on overnight bus last night!! I just dey laff, wallahi tallahi!!” he tweeted.
In August 2020, Deji Adeyanju, the Convener of Concerned Nigerians who had a strong affiliation with the PDP government, also placed a bet of $10,000 with supporters of Peter Obi in Nigeria and in the diaspora that their candidate will emerge a distant 3rd in the 2023 elections.
The young citizens who are increasingly inpatient for change that would birth a country of their dreams shocked the older generation with the results of the election.
In El-Rufai’s Kaduna state, the LP ruffled feathers and polled 294,494 votes while the governor’s APC polled 399,293 votes to come second behind the PDP. In Lagos, where Bola Tinubu, APC’s presidential candidate, has been a political force since 1999, the Labour Party caused an upset and defeated him in his stronghold. It was one of the biggest upsets in the election. In Delta where the PDP is the ruling party and the governor Ifeanyi Okowa is Atiku’s running mate, the LP also swept votes in the state. Amid reports of irregularities, violence and manipulation of votes where the LP’s candidate is popular, in total, the LP won 11 states and secured a total of 6,101,533 votes to come third behind the PDP with 6,984,520 and the APC with 8,794,726 votes.
The outcome of the 2023 presidential election which is still being contested by the opposition, including Obi’s party, over alleged irregularities and manipulations has set a fundamental departure from the usual politics as the older generation is now taking the young citizens more seriously after ridiculing their movement.
For a generation that came of age and rode to political power through the ‘Ali Must Go’ revolution of the 1970s and the ‘Anti-SAP’ revolution of 1980s by the National Union of Nigerian Students (NUNS), as well as the 1990s revolution that followed the annulled June 12, 1993, presidential elections, many still wonder why the same generation believed the younger citizens cannot lead a political revolution that will bring change in the age of internet when information and anger now travel faster than the 1990s.
With their stakes increasingly growing higher in Nigeria’s socio-political space, it is very unlikely that the young citizens will shed their renewed political energy over time after carrying on for more than two years since the 2020 EndSARS protest, and as long as the political class continue to bring disorder to the room, it’s only a matter of time before the young citizens finally retire them from politics.
Though Inec declared Tinubu the winner I am so happy Labour Party pulled so much weight in this election. It shows that power belongs to the people. It shows how we the youths can achieve a lot if we are united. Those in power know this and that’s why they keep bringing up tribal issues just to tear the youths apart and make us hate each other n thereby keeping corrupt leaders in power.
We are a woke generation that will never go to sleep again even of Peter Obi doesn’t retrieve the mandate. We are wide awake watching their every move. We are not leaving the criticism of those in power to just the opposition party alone we are all going to do the criticism together to keep those in government / power on their toes.