ABIDEMI ODERINLO for WYMD Leadership Board.. Vote! Vote!! Vote!!!

The World Youth Movement for Democracy (WYMD) is a network that aims to support the development of sustainable democracy movements by empowering the next generation of democracy activists. The movement provides a space for young activists to build relationships with each other, to collaborate across borders, to deepen their knowledge on key issues, and to develop practical skills. It promotes democratic values and provides for sharing of information and ideas and it is guided by a Leadership Board with representation from Africa, Asia, Europe/Eurasia, the Americas, and the Middle East and North Africa regions under a supervising Advisory Council.

The election that will place new young leaders on the Leadership Board of WYMD begins today 07/02/2014 12:00noon EST and ends on 11/02/2014 by 12:00noon EST on www.wymdonline.org. Seven young Africans, Four Asians, One Latin American, One European and One Middle Easterner that are interested in taking Democracy in the world to a new horizon will be contesting for positions on the board and the power to decide is in your hands. Who will you be voting for? Click here to find out how.

I am Abidemi Oderinlo a young Nigerian, contesting to represent Africa on the Leadership Board of WYMD. 

Youths in Africa have been yearning for an opportunity, a platform, a medium through which they can express their views, air their voices, become a part of the process and bodies that creates the policies and make decision that affects their lives, they want to be involved in building the world they live in, be heard and respected, be saddled with more responsibilities and not sidelined by the system on the grounds of being inexperience, incompetent or too young to be responsible for a lot. This is what WYMD is offering, and this is why I am standing to represent Africa on the board, with the prospect of opening young Africans to youth empowerment opportunities and the best practices of democracy that are applicable and practicable on the African continent, through my direct interaction with young democracy activist and leaders represented on the board.

The challenges facing democracy in African countries are similar, therefore it is important for young African to come together find a common ground to analyze, define, and strategize on how to tackle these challenges, towards a more democratic Africa. Given the opportunity to serve on the WYMD Leadership Board, I intend to use the platform to broker relationship that will strengthen and unify our voices, opening more young Africans to opportunities that will increase exchange of ideas, and proven youth driven democratic practices within and from other countries of the world, that will improve our polity as a continent and build for all a more vibrant and productive society.

The Arrowhead of Change, Growth and Development.

The Young Change Makers

All over the world, the youths have always been the strength of every nation both in times of peace or war, they define the fate of nations, directly or indirectly, for good or bad either by their actions or inaction.

History, across all classifications clearly shows that the strength or weakness of the young and energetic population of every nation and people defines her success or failure. Africans as a people have experienced tremendous change through the strength of her youths, and her freedom from colonization was largely engineered by her young population.

Kwame Nkrumah started the movement to liberate Ghana before his 30th birthday, Thomas Sankara liberated the Upper Volta from the French colonial, renamed her Burkina Faso ("Land of Upright Men") and launched one of the most ambitious programmes for social and economic change ever attempted on the African continent at the age of 33. Mandella's long walk to freedom started in his youth at the age of 19 in 1937, while Martin Luther King, Jr. started leading the Civil Right Movement at the age of 25.

In business, John D. Rockefeller started at the age of 20 and rose to become the first billionaire in the history of America, and at the age of 21, J.P. Morgan introduced a process of taking over troubled businesses to reorganize them, and the process was renowned and dubbed "Morganization". Bill Gate started Microsoft at the age of 20, Steve Jobs started Apple at 21 and Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook at 20. Throughout history, the greatest achievements of man that has changed the way we live were initiated by young people who reached beyond the limits of the norms.

To be young is to be without limits in thoughts and in action, to innovate and to create, to build and sustain and not otherwise in all things and at all times. It is a wrong ideology to see the strength in youthfulness as a ready catalyst for  political violence and siege, and if the vitality of the youth were to be used in a siege, it must be a siege for positive change and not selfish political conquest as it is currently experience in some parts of Africa and other developing countries. This destructive design, craftily masterminded by the unthinking political elites, most of whom started their political careers in their youth, in their bid to hold onto power instead paving the way for the creative energy of the youths to come to bare and rule. As youths, we must eschew this vices, become conscious of our strength and realise our potentials. We must synergize our essence which is of good and growth, and use it to neutralize the hold of the old, feeble, frail few who are working to change the purpose of youthfulness from good to evil.

To be young is to be a tool for positive change, a problem solver, an elixir of hope and a catalyst for a better today and tomorrow.

NB: I am joining Leadership Board of World Youth Movement for Democracy and I need your support to make it a reality. visit www.wymdonline.org to register and be eligible to vote. 

Voting starts from 7th, Feb. 2014 -- 11th, Feb. 2014. Winners will be announced 12th, Feb. 2014.

For more information, click here! >>> Read More

When Will Tomorrow Come? (The So-Called Leaders of Tomorrow, The Youths)

I have asked myself this question over a million times and today, I choose to ask again. When will tomorrow come in Nigeria? I am sure this is a question on the lips of millions of young Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora. It has been a dream, always a dream to see young Nigerians grow into position of leadership, strength and power, into positions that will justify the world famous line from the rhyme that we sang as kids. "…Parents listen to your children, we are the leaders of tomorrow…".

A good percentage of the children that were born in the year Gen. Muhammad Buhari was usurped from power are no longer in the rank of children today, they are daddies and mummies, either by choice or force, in subjection and response to their natural hormonal growth and bodily development that has committed them to going familiar. Even for those that are still in charge, they are Godfathers to so many children that they can hardly go in any direction without being called daddy. I am a good example. The eldest of my Godchildren will be ten in November 2014, I am still single but it's almost unbelievable because if I was a girl turned woman, I would be regarded way beyond my prime, and would be in the class of the so many praying by fire in the various camps of Pentecostal churches adorning the Lagos-Ibadan express way.

I remember writing in my essay that won Africa Regional prize at the World Youth Movement for Democracy contest in 2010.

"The youths have been a major part of the problem for too long, now is the time for us to become an integral part of the solution."

I was also forced to site an expression that was more of a truth than joke that I found on a friend's Facebook page during the build up to the 2011 election that same year when Buhari rolled out his campaign under the banner of CPC in the essay.

 “In 1984, my teacher told me that Gen. Buhari was a past leader, Gen. IBB the president, and that we are the leaders of tomorrow. Now it is 2010 and they are still leading. It is either my teacher is a liar or tomorrow is yet to come.”

That got me thinking in 2011 because the two men he mentioned were planning to contest again for presidency in the  general election that year.  I found a chronicle of  the rulership/leadership history of the unrelenting, fruitless reign of Bamanga Tukur spanning over forty years of Nigerian history on Rise Network Facebook page and it bore a hole in my heart. I began to wonder, what else has this old cargo got to offer that our forever clueless GEJ named him the chairman of Nigerian Railway Corporation NRC, after he was ousted as the PDP BOT chairman. He once held a similar position forty years ago, became the governor of old Gongola State for three months before the coup and dilly-dallied through politics for over forty years, causing numerous destruction and decay along the way, and he's still being fixed to continue his stealing streak. I'm bleeding!

This is 2014 and Buhari is still in the picture, a Bamanga Tukur is holding on with his teeth, Atiku is playing the gentleman in the background, OBJ wants to be relevant for ever as the Godfather and king maker, Yerima is shuttling between governorship and the senate like his cohorts, while a retard by design "Suntai" is still being put up as a puppet in Taraba, all of this men, not younger than 60, but they are still struggling and grubbing for political offices after 30 to 40 years of political careers that has seen them bring Nigeria to her lowest ebb, fruitless and devalued, even in the oculi of the nations she once fed, clothed and secured.  I kept pondering on the situation and concluded that truly, recycling must stop, but how do we stop it? 

We have numbers and strength but yet we put it to the wrong use, the big excuse is the lack  of the most basic of the needs of an average human been. Poverty as ridden the system off its hoof and the value of the life of an average youth is N5000 for his life, and N500 for her vote at the polls. The young, strong and agile force of this nation Nigeria has been the power grabbing and maintenance tools in the hand of the old, unworthy, never-retiring politicians of Nigeria. Our wrong participation in the polity of our dear nation as youth has remained the bane of our society and there must be an end to it. It is this shared force that we generate to do evil that we must synergized to win back Nigeria, BUT the question still remains "when will the proverbial tomorrow prophesied for the youths of this nation arrive?" When are we waking up from our dark nights to see that we are indeed the sunrise, the power and the rule of law, and not the fattened, frail and weak politicians that comes with a purse to dangle before us like a carrot, in an attempt to sit on the whole bank of treasure and resources that belongs to the nation as a whole alone?

I found this detailed analysis of our strength in numbers  by Tolu Ogunlesi , on the 20th of Jan. 2014, on the pages of Punch newspaper and here are some excerpts:

"If you think about it, there are millions of Nigerian teenagers who have come of voting age in the last three years, since the April 2011 elections. Let’s break it down. The voting age in Nigeria is 18. This means that anyone born after January 1993 would have been ineligible to vote in the 2011 elections (considering that voters’ registration was last done in January 2011). In 2015, those born in 1997 will finally be eligible to vote. What this means is that there’s a mass of Nigerians born between 1993 and 1997, who could not vote in 2011 but will now be able to vote in 2015.

In the mid-nineties, an estimated four million children were born annually in Nigeria. Even accounting for child mortality figures, the size of that 1993 – 1996/7 demographic should still be in excess of 10 million. That’s a sizable number, for any political party seeking to target new demographics. (This is where we have to give a nod to the Nigeria Tragedy: The fact that, going by our school enrolment rates, a sizable number of those young people will have never stepped inside a classroom; that they will be illiterate, destitute, frustrated, and completely uninterested in partisan politics outside of the context of thuggery and banditry). "

This statistics shows that we've increased by over 10million between 2011 as youths but it has been the same number of Babangida, Tinubu, Buhari and Obasanjo that are still running Naija dry. The numbers hasn't changed for them, in fact it has reduced because quite a number of this menace in our society already died during the course of this years that we've increased greatly, putting us at an advantage if we act right. Do we then sit down again and wait to be used as thugs or do we decided to participate at every level by all means necessary? Even if we have to fight and bite, let's be caught fighting for us and not for this over blotted thieves who are hell bent on draining Nigeria to the bone as they amass wealth at the peril of every average Nigerian, on their way to hell.

We can redefine tomorrow, we can make it NOW, we can stop singing the songs as we did in primary school, and secondary school. We can change rhymes and sing a new song as we move towards a new Nigeria. We've failed to see with our eyes open, the facts steers at us directly but we are too frail to focus even though we are the strongest and most advantaged in this equation. This men and women  we now worship got the first taste of power in their youths, but they preach the gospel of 50something to us and we smile. Gowon, Obasanjo, Buhari, Babangida, Murtala and others became presidents and Generals when they were barely thirty years of age so what are we waiting for, it is time to snatch it out of their old, feeble hands by contesting, participating and voting for ourselves instead of dying and waiting to be fed from the money they steal from us on a daily basis. Force is not required, tactics is all we need. I know it might be a challenge to find a credible youth in this time and age, but I believe that there is still more value left in us than them so I choose to be the change I want in 2014 to 2015,  from Ekiti to Osun and to other parts of the federated Nigeria. I will rather vote for an inexperience Tolu Ogunlesi, a fragile Japeth J. Omojuwa,  or contest as the undisputed Abidemi Babaolowo Oderinlo. Will you?

While we stand in joyful hope as we await tomorrow, let us lift up our holy hands in preparation for the coming elections. It is never too early, it is never too late to be the change we want to see. It is time to become the leaders of today instead of waiting for tomorrow that will never come, let us dare to be the change and become the tomorrow today.

The Blameless CP Mbuh and His Holy Accusers

The  unfolding drama in that saintly South South state governed by Amaechi, Wike, Mbu, Dame and by proxy GEJ is getting more interesting day by day. It is taking different turns,  carrying the battle tag of the "Rivers Crisis" it has gone ballistic with rubber bullets and tear gas canisters adorning the chest of men and the streets of Rivers state.

The state Commissioner of Police (CP) Mbu, the man saddled with the sole responsibility of managing security in the state under the command of the state Governor Amaechi has been accused of partisan practices by almost everybody, including his supposed state boss Amaechi, and everywhere is in a smoke of truth and lies where everybody seems to be holy and blameless in the matter except GEJ. Perhaps you might wonder why I exempted GEJ, it is simple, he's the only one that hasn't bothered to say anything in self defense as far as I know.

All fingers are pointing at CP Mbu and GEJ, so the CP as decided to come out and unmask the monsters, standing blameless in his office by his own standards and judgement. According to Mbu:

       1.            The governor doesn’t like him because he refuse to fight his perceived political enemies.

       2.            The Police did not shoot Senator Abbe because according to him, the Rivers State command does not have rubber bullets, they only have live bullets and tear gas.

In the interview he granted a few days ago, he had this to say about Senator Abbe's attack

" We were informed that there would be rally, but no letter was written to us for permission. So I asked my men to take over the venue of the rally before that day. Senator Abbe met my CSP Operations at the venue and they were talking. Thugs were coming from the other side and my men had to release tear gas. The senator crossed the road and entered the church. Nobody shot Senator Abbe. He should show Nigerians the bullet wounds. The tear gas did not even touch him because he went into the church."

Then a few days later, in a video interview at his office he confirmed the receipt of a letter from the Save Rivers Group after the group came out with a signed and stamped copy of the letter they submitted to the state Police command.

"They submitted their letter to our office and it was stamped and received by the officers in charge, that is normal protocol when any letter is sent here but I didn't receive the letter directly, that is not my duty." 

And he went ahead to produce the letter from his desk to show the newsmen. Please notice the words, phrases and sentences I underlined.

The Rivers State Police Command is the responsibility of Mbu, and he is answerable for the action of his office and men. At first he claimed there was no letter, but later he conceded to receiving and stamping a letter, and finally twisted it that it was not his duty to receive letters directly although his office received the document. Permit me to exonerate this great public servant who didn't know a letter was on his desk but was quick to mobilize his men to go take over the venue of a rally, harass civilians and disband a lawful gathering of Nigerians instead protecting the rallying citizens from harm.  According to his account, "Nobody shot Abbe," his men only fired tear gas at the thugs they saw on the other side. Thugs who probably had guns and presumably shot the senator when he was crossing the road to enter the church. I am more amazed than even CP Mbu at the sterling action and performance of his men. When did men of the Nigerian Police become so civilized that they were throwing "Tear Gas" at gun wielding thugs, policemen that will naturally shoot even harmless citizen at the slightest provocation now suddenly realize that they must be cautious, after they had already disbanded a rally that was legally assembled. The most surprising part of his testimony is the claim that the tear gas did not touch Senator. Mbu, as if the gas is "Akamu" that scatters on the floor and stays down when it is shot in any direction. Here is one of such tear-gassing spree CP Mbu personally led.

Indeed, this officer and his men are blameless and should be left in peace.

Far beyond his unconstitutional actions that he believes were right and probably in the best interest of the people of Rivers State as against the perception that it is in support of GEJ,PDP and other federal mercenaries that are perceived to be engineering him against Amaechi and APC, I feel the exodus of this gradually degenerating situation arrived with the tussle and friction between Mbu and his Governor on his arrival in the State. I once sojourned in Rivers in 2007, an election year, and I couldn't wait to get out of it. I stayed in Delta State too in 2003, a more volatile time and environment in Warri but filled with more accommodating people and I never wanted to leave. The people of this neighbouring states are as different as chalk and cheese and the level of contempt of an average Riverian is alarming, nauseating and very provocative, especially in the rank of superiority complex, pride and sense of duty, and I have only seen worst scenario of contempt in some part of northern Nigeria, although they are more accommodating when compared to the people of Rivers, all of this in my own opinion. I totally agree Mbu was treated the way he claimed he was by Amaechi because he obviously wasn't the bowing down, favour seeking type of CP, I have seen worst behaviour in the ordinary citizens of Rivers, and his claim of a cordial relationship with Ajimobi of Oyo State is only a proof of the minute sanity existing in some APC setup when compared to the confirmed tyranny of the PDP system from, starting the top to the bottom. However, CP Mbu retaliation attempt does not justify his joining camp with the big boss GEJ to frustrate democracy in Rivers State, rather he should suggest to GEJ to put Amaechi on the list and not the whole state in jeopardy in the name of "Order From Above" from "Oga At The Top". Now APC had enough goats to tame in her shed, it has now "Ko eran mo ero", I just hope APC have a lead on how to tame the mad PDP dogs that had jumped into its camp, or perhaps a leach for them, only time will tell.

Amaechi is definitely a power drunk politician in the middle of a tussle with higher powers, and CP Mbu probably an intimidated power wielding Police Officer, throwing below belt punches because he's got orders to do so, and his quietly enjoying it because he thought the umpires are looking away, or perhaps he's forgotten that the umpires are no longer the men in Abuja, but the people of Rivers State, and Nigerians as a whole. One thing is certain now that the "die is cast", somebody will be sacrificed on the altar of this political hypocrisy. Now we know the blameless CP is not blameless at all after confessing he ordered his men to take over the venue of a rally after his office has been duly informed, and gave a legal ratification, offering to protect the gathering, amongst other interference and infringement on the rights of the people. The holy Amaechi is also definitely not a saint by allowing his personal feeling to becloud is sense of judgement and duty as a governor, up to the point of allegedly offering the CP the offer of contracts aka bribes (as accused by the CP) if he will bend to his will instead of representing the interest of the State and her people. Senator Abbe has received the first shot and is supposedly "ritenuto"  in the pain of the plastic bullet wound. He'd sent a lengthy letter to his colleagues at the senate of his own account of the "12th of January Shooting", let' see who gets shot in return for it.

Here are some links to wet your lips

CP Mbu's Interview and Account of Events

Senator Abbe's Letter and Account of Events

I am Abidemi Babaolowo Oderinlo

iThink, iWrite and iActOnIt

Twitter: @enyola