Dear Nigerian Youths,Recall that in a similar struggle to the #endsars protest that happened sometime in 1999, when it seemed that the country was drifting, Dr Alex Ekwueme mobilized the group of 34 eminent Nigerians (aka G-34) who risked their lives to stand up against the dictatorship of General Sani Abacha during the era of military rule in Nigeria. As providence will have it, death took away General Abacha about that same period and the G-34 eventually metamorphosed into a political party that received power from the military and ushered in the current democratic dispensation.
As you are aware, hoodlums have infiltrated your struggle and turning it into nationwide mayhem and anarchy. The facilities and infrastructure being destroyed belongs to you people and not to the politicians or the former bad leaders, wherever they may be. These facilities and infrastructure belong to you Nigeria youths! The attendant job losses from these destructions, anarchy and mayhem are the jobs of Nigeria youths not the jobs of the politicians!
I will enjoin you people to while waiting for the government to address your demands as they have promised, consider evolving your movement into a political party that will wrestle power from the old brigade come 2023, instead of allowing your struggle to be hijacked to wreck your country. Nothing can be achieved through anarchy and lawlessness!
I believe that being more exposed to the realities of modern nations and economies than the old brigade, especially with some of you living in successful societies not built on nepotism, corruption and over dependence on natural resources, you people will be able to stir this country on the path of prosperity for the benefit of everybody, irrespective of tribe, ethnicity or religion.
I firmly believe that you people will be in the best position to always present our first eleven and create a place of pride for Nigeria in the committee of nations, compared to the nepotistic, tribalistic and corrupt old brigade.
I believe that having watched your contemporaries like Mark Zukerberg, Elon Musk etc create within the space of 10 years, companies whose yearly earnings are higher than your country’s annual budget, you people will be in the best position to unlock the potential of this country and stir it away from the rent seeking fossil fuel and natural resources dependent economy.
There is nothing that confirms that you people have more than enough power both financially and politically to take over this country than you guys ability to sell your new start up tech company Paystack to and American company for whooping sum of $200 million USD. No old brigade has been able to achieve this!
Your ability to raise money in split seconds, not only for this protest, but for other incidental humanitarian gestures that you people undertook within this short period further affirms the enormous power that you have to take over this country and turn it to countries like United Arab Emirate.
So my dear youths, I make a special appeal to you this evening of the 24th October 2020, to take the necessary actions to separate from the hoodlums that are bent on creating anarchy, so that the government can do the needful in restoring sanity and forestall further destruction of facilities and infrastructure that belong to you.
The risk of allowing the current situation to persist longer than necessary is that our enemies will introduce religion and tribalism into it and set this country on fire. Please you people should listen to wisdom
May the souls of the youths that have died in this protest rest in peace and may their deaths never be in vain. Amen!My heart felt condolences goes to all the families that have lost their loved ones in this struggle.God speed…
Ugochukwu Egerue.
