A perception is now rampant that Nigerian political leadership is hungry for a generational change. We are fed up of the old guard of politicians and ‘politics as usual’. Enough of people in their late 60s, 70s and even 80s who just will not give way and allow a younger generation to ascend the ladder of national leadership.
• Dr. Amuta, Executive Editor of USAfrica since 1993, is an author and distinguished scholar of literature, sociology, communications and politics.
Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, the first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet
What is popularly referred to as the “turn by turn” syndrome is a very Nigerian political affliction. It just requires that the political baton of leadership and pre-eminence be periodically passed from region to region, ethnicity to ethnicity, and perhaps faith to faith. Perhaps it is now time to apply a generational qualifier to our political dynamics.
Since the issue on hand is democracy and its prevalence among our people, we can invoke history to help us.
Nigerians born after 1999, the year the military ceded space for the return of democracy, are the most authentic and qualified candidates to lead a democratic Nigeria. They are now at most 27 years. You can concede an age bracket of all those under the age of 40 as the democracy generation if we consider that those who were about 12 years old by 1999, when the military quit, knew nothing of garrison political values. In other words, it is now the turn of Nigerians born and raised in the era of democracy. They have only recently attained voting age. They now qualify to give us a new lease of political leadership. They have neither experience nor memory of dictatorship and arbitrary rule.
Let us call them the democracy generation or “Children of Democracy”. They were born in a relatively free state and attained voting age unencumbered by jackboots, decrees and regimental commands loudly barked by merchants of violence. They are the generation born free, unlimited by silly barriers and curtailments. Those who are under 40 are the critical mass of nearly 75% of our estimated 230 million population.
But ironically, most of those who order our lives today, the present crop of political leaders are people over 40, products of dictatorship, arbitrariness and impunity. They came into political consciousness under military dictatorships of different hues. They grew when decrees, jackboots, horse whips and impunity were the markers of social and political reality.
In other words, our public affairs are being directed by a largely authoritarian generation. Even when elected through democratic rituals, our present crop of leaders relapse easily into authoritarian ways and habits. They are reluctant to respect free elections. When elected, they easily degenerate into imperial governors and legislative terrorists. Yet, the children of democracy born in freedom are being compelled to obey without complaints.
Those with good memory will recall that the most activist era of Nigerian history was when the nation was under a more youthful breed of leaders. Gowon was 31 years old when he became Head of State. Murtala Mohammed was 36 when he assumed national leadership. Ojukwu was 33 years old when he led Biafra. Alfred Diette Spiff was 26 when he became governor of then Rivers State. Osaigbovo Ogbemudia was 35 when he energized the governance of then Bendel state.
Elsewhere, in Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara was 33 when he re-wrote the story of that arid poor country of dusty Savannahs. Today, Toure is 34 and trailing the same path as his illustrious late predecessor. Muammar Ghaddafi was 27 when he toppled the monarchy in Libya. Jerry Rawlings was a swashbuckling 32-year-old young air force pilot when he stormed Ghana’s seat of power and inaugurated the violent changes that guided the journey to today’s democratic Ghana.
These varied youthful leaders have not all been under democracies. The important point is to underline the relationship between youth and energized leadership under whatever guise or terrain. The idealism and energy of youth have often been associated with visionary and activist leadership phases in national governance and history. Youth is the age of daring, fearlessness, audacity and messianism. Idealism fires vision and leadership requires a guiding vision to drive change.
The leadership of Nigeria under more youthful leaders may not have been under democratic climates. But no one can deny that idealism, energy and vision energized Nigerian leadership at certain points in our history. We remain nostalgic about those moments of anger and revolt under young leaders. The Murtala spirit dissolved the colonial regions and replaced them with today’s states. It decentralized the army and police and created a national command structure. That spirit redefined Nigeria’s federalism along less regional and ethnic lines while strengthening a united national ethos.
It is important to point out that in today’s demographic configuration, the age bracket of the youth is technically structured out of leadership because of the timing of the military’s exit from power. The timing of the return of democracy after decades of military despotism has placed our democracy generation at a disadvantage but they are the majority of this hour. It is their hour and the moment of the change we have been waiting for.
We must however admit the uncomfortable reality that those at the helm today have entrenched themselves politically and financially. Therefore, our democracy generation has to fight their way into political leadership and notice by protesting, clawing, scratching, screaming and overturning things in order even to be noticed. We, their sympathizers, in the ancient powerless brackets of the population, are too powerless to be of any help or use to them in the battles ahead. We can only pray, urge and encourage from the spectator stand.
This is perhaps the crux of political division and conflict in today’s Nigeria and in the years ahead. Happily, the democracy generation is imbued with a totally different mindset and set of values. They treasure freedom, openness and accountability. They insist that things be done properly. They want to demystify the mechanics and processes of government. Technology, modernization and travel exposure have opened their eyes to the global village and the wonders of the new world. They look at the progress in other lands and ask: why not here too? Their patriotism is fired by these new realities and an anxiety for Nigeria to move quickly to the front row of human progress.
The military and garrison generation is authoritarian, ancient but lawless. We older ones see democracy as merely a manner of speaking, a buzz word and fashion. Our party members still wear printed uniforms emblazoned with the images of our candidates like deities! We speak of democracy but hire lawyers and bride crooked judges to thwart the popular will after chaotic elections. We fight elections like pitch battles and routinely demolish civil rights and lawful freedoms with executive wrecking balls.
We define ‘good’ citizens as those who vote for us in exchange for loaves of bread and wads of currency. Those who do not question us as we embezzle constituency votes are good followers and devotees. Those who ask us uncomfortable questions are trouble makers and opposition rascals who must be conquered and quarantined to a life time of poverty and hunger. At best, the rest of us in the civil populace now have a polarized consciousness.
The democracy generation is the dominant force in today’s social media landscape. They constitute a dormant volcano underneath our uneasy calm. They have no patience with arbitrary decisions and lawless orders. They are ready -made protesters against social and economic deprivation, injustice and governmental high-handedness. They are the “Endsars” mob, the “Revolution Now” standby crowd on regular call in Abuja and the ‘We no go gree’ chorus on every tertiary campus. When the First Lady encountered them at that Edo School of Nursing, the democracy kids changed the theme of the welcome song from “Na our Mama be this” to “Na una Mama be that o!”. What audacious kids! But that is how they were raised. They are vendors of free speech, natural rebels against authoritarian impositions and systems that limit and constrict freedom of speech and movement.
Our ageing and aged politicians, mostly bred under the military, cannot understand them. The police is trained to see them as lawbreakers and troublemakers. They drive around town in fancy “papa dash me “ automobiles.
Their offices are mostly laptops in those cars or smartphones wired 24/7 to the internet with instant video cameras. Don’t ask them silly questions about the contents of their phones and laptops. That is an invasion of their privacy, their sanctuary or virtual sovereign space. They live and breathe in another world where they are at work wherever they are and are handsomely paid for their intellectual assets which we analog generation can neither broach nor touch or understand.
The democratic instincts of our democracy generation have been deepened by an embrace of rapid developments in technology, especially information technology. Physically, they live among us but mentally and culturally, “they are the world”. At very short notice, they overwhelm the information space with their views and preferences.
Somehow, the future of our society and democracy in particular will depend on the plight and preferences of the democracy generation. They will fight us to yield them space. They are not likely to take power peacefully because we , their adversaries, are entrenched, violent and vicious. But they too are inherently impatient, intemperate and can act spontaneously if need be. That is why every household is now a theatre of an undeclared war between the garrison generation and the democracy generation.
The democracy generation are asking us uncomfortable questions. They cannot understand why we cannot conduct simple elections and render honest results. They cannot understand why adult public officials, some already in their seventies, will steal billions of dollars from the public till when their needs ought to be diminishing. They cannot figure out why we convert simple hiccups into huge problems that last for decades to solve. Or, for that matter, why the simple solutions that the people seek , like electricity, pipe-borne water, public safety and primary healthcare still hold our society hostage?
The central irony of our day is that the democracy generation are still largely apolitical. Politics has been made uninteresting and unattractive to them. Most of them casually leave the political field to the elders. They prefer to become skit makers and musicinas with neither talent nor preparation. And yet it is now all about their future and those of their own children. A trickle of them are crawling out to join parties and contest elections. But the broad current of the democracy generation are still lost in the sea and wilderness of political alienation.
In the 2023 elections, one presidential candidate, Peter Obi, used the social media to deliver an appropriate message to this generation. He challenged them to retake their nation and the politics of organized criminality. That message and the social media swept through the nation and nearly upset the old political apple cart. But the old guard seems to have retaken the theatre.
As the 2027 elections approach, we are at the cusp of yet another battle. The abiding question remains: Will the Democracy Generation step forward to vote and retake their nation?
As Gen. Trump declared victory in an ongoing war. By Asiegbu Agwu Nkpa
