You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness. In this case, it comes from nonconformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future. It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. We must dare to invent the future. (Sankara)
Today we live in a world faced with huge social challenges. This generation, MY GENERATION, the most interconnected generation ever, continues to grow rapidly, and the challenges we face are ever more daunting. About half of all young people survive on less than two dollars a day. So, for servants and protectors of the people (the police) to be the oppressor, it is distasteful and a joke taken too far. This is coming from someone who was brutalised by the police at the age of 16.
Our country’s history is the story of young people driving political progress. From the generation that fought for independence to the Gideon Okar to Yakubu Gowon, to the youths in the NADECO movement that fought against the military.
We want a world where the potential of each young person is fulfilled. The dynamic organisation and structure of the ‘leaderless’ EndSARS campaign has shown that young people know what to do. Young people have exhibited their organisational and management skills, they have responded to challenges, they have been able to put resource together, collaborating towards achieving their goals.
The current story on police reform will not be written by adults or politicians: it will be written by we, the young people, who have had enough, and are pushing, in a dramatic fashion, for change.
We are the turning point generation and our generation have no time or patience for niceties. We want to see change, and We want to see it now. This idealism and ability to see the world for what it can be, rather than for what it is today, is why this youth activism has always been so powerful, and so necessary.
If our parent genuinely reflects, they will realise that they once possessed that same urgency of spirit and activism. From Ali must Go to Abacha Must Go.
May my eyes never see and my feet never take me to a society where half the people are held in silence.
Moti #Sorosoke
