Atiku walks his talk on Nigerian youths

Last week, I heard the radio and televisions announcements inviting the public to witness former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, declare his intention to contest for the presidential nomination of the opposition APC.  I could not help bursting out in laughter at the end of the adverts, when Atiku’s campaign slogan was announced.  His “A Nigeria for All” apt slogan had been translated into Pidgin English as “Na All of Us Waka Come”, an obvious play on the famous words of First Lady Patience Jonathan, during the meeting where she accosted representatives at the fact-finding meeting she had convened on the missing C hibok girls. As it were, Atiku has finally provided a response to Mrs Jonathan’s unanswered question: “Na only you waka come?”
The crowd that gathered at the Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja to attend the event initially made entrance into the venue almost impossible.  But after much shoving and pushing, I finally made it in.  I had been told that Wi-Fi would be enabled at the venue so that people could blog and tweet freely – a risky undertaking, if you ask me. What if something had gone horribly wrong and the guests had gone ahead and tweeted immediately? How would the politicians have done their usual cover-up and whitewashing? Clearly, Atiku and his people didn’t care.
They also didn’t seem to care about the attendance of the usual potbellied fogeys who have been involved in every Nigerian election since 1960. Atiku’s declaration had been tagged a “Youth Event”. This is Nigeria, where even people in their 50s claim to be youth so I was surprised to see very few wrinkled faces and white hairs among the thousands of guests who had gathered to attend the event. They looked like actual young people. Some were dressed in Hausa attire, some were dressed in Igbo, some were dressed in Yoruba. These were young people from all over Nigeria. The event began with the rendition of the national anthem by a singer, called Omawunmi. She turned out to be a young girl, instead of the Omawunmi that many of us know. Then followed some traditional dances and a few jokes from the MC, Gbenga Olayinka. And then, a video on the “state of the nation”.
The “State of the Nation” featured a number of Nigerians pouring out their hearts about their problems and challenges in different areas – from security to employment to education. Another video came afterwards. Titled, “A Nigeria for All”, the documentary showed Atiku stating his ideas about Nigeria’s problems and solutions. After the documentary, a number of young people from different parts of Nigeria were called out of the audience to stand on the stage and also express their challenges and frustrations.
Particularly striking was a young woman with both Igbo and Hausa names, whose family had lived in Kano for the past 80 years. Now, everybody phones her from Kano to ask when she will come and move her father away from Kano and back to their village in Igbo land. But, according to her, Kano is their home. Why should they run away from a land they had called home for decades? Not as if life in other parts of Nigeria was safer. Kidnappers lurk in the South-East. The woman wished for a Nigeria where ethnicity and insecurity issues did not have to force people to scramble from one part of the country to the other. When Atiku finally mounted the stage to speak, after his brief bio was read, I was glad that he had been there to listen firsthand to the challenges and frustrations that had been reeled out over the past hour or more. It is good for our Nigerian politicians to listen first to the people’s problems, before proffering solutions.
Halfway through Atiku’s speech, his voice cracked. This happened when he described the death of his father at the age of 11. “My whole world fell apart. With the help of my mother, other relatives and friends of my father, I pulled myself up from this doldrums and despair. I faced the future with uncommon confidence, hope and faith in God. I am where I am today because I did not give up,” he said.
“I struggled to acquire a good education because the opportunity was made available. Most people never had a chance and their potentials were never discovered and their contributions to national development thus curtailed. I worry today that too many of our young people who could have improved their lives and that of this nation have not been getting the opportunities to do so.”
Many of Nigeria’s politicians speak frequently about their concern for Nigeria’s young people. They worry about our future, express concern for our issues, and make all kinds of promises for what would happen if we vote for them. Atiku seems to have begun his campaign on a different note: Making young people the focus and target group of his declaration event. On that note, Nigeria’s youth can take him seriously when he says that he has our interests at heart. I, for one, will be watching to see whether the rest of his campaign sustains this positive direction.

Akachi Nnadozie,
Abuja