Is “Knowledge Power” or “Power is Power”: What “Nigerian Youth” Can Learn from the Election

What I am hearing and what you must have heard is that it is time to give power to the youths, or time for the youth to take power. However, I don’t know where power is given and how simply power can be taken.

It is recently that people started changing the phrase ‘knowledge is power’ to something like ‘power is power’, probably because of ‘Game of Thrones’ movie coming to change established wisdom or because people started seeing people in power but do not know how they got there. But does that mean they just jumped there?

I believe the quake created recently in Nigeria by the Labour Party led by Peter obi and followed by ‘Nigerian youths’ who are created by the Endsars aftermath;  where the youths believe that the ruling ‘old people’ have failed and the consequences are killing the youth so they want to go from rampage on the street to take over the government. That is strange! If they claim this is not the case then what was the plan? The agitation was not created by any structure nor did it evolve into any. In fact, the logic posed then was not to make anything organized so it won’t be infiltrated by the ruling class that are somewhat organized.

This class of youths claim they represent the Nigerian youths and later in the course, the voices of the people dominate the fan and the disciple of the presidential aspirant of LP (Labour Party). These ‘Nigerian youths’ curse those that supported a person like Tinubu, of the APC especially the youths as a betrayer and slaves of the corrupt class.

How easy is it to pass down power and create regeneration in the political system of a country especially if the existing system is unfavourable, corrupt and selfish? has this form of emotionally driven- expressions and proclamations, and uncalculated moves and assertions ever toppled the existing greedy government? Do we really think it is easy to make a change after so many years of degradation from people who were once young and then grew in rank to become the ruling generation by just trying to make points under 160 characters on Twitter within the bedroom? Shouldn’t the be more to it if we are serious?

Youth claim to be angry, fed-up ready. The Endsars event made this clear and it was closely followed by the election to swap governments. It is then strange that of all the agitations, and tweets, only Peter Obi with is grey hair was available.

Knowledge might not be power but knowledge brings power. It is irrational to say power is power because you need to have that power first, and it can only be easy through inheritance and a fool that inherit power can’t keep it.

In the history of those that were youth before us but with the same problem can be a place to start. The Nigerian heroes fought to take power from a more advanced race that came to colonize us. If you listen to the likes of Tafawa Balewa, Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, etc, you will understand and feel the knowledge and freedom-fighting wisdom to take back their country. It is like taking candy from a cow, you don’t want to be dead and be blamed. And this way of engagement can’t happen differently. We are being colonized by our greed and age is not the problem the but a general corrupt mentality. Black people that were violent at those times were commended but they died anyway. It was the Whites who gave freedom to us after it was sought through wisdom and maturity. They were young too and their fathers might have displayed ’endsars’ energy but we met by ‘massacre’ beyond the ‘lekkis’; and failed.  These young men did not even make a ‘Fela’ their mouthpiece while he was smoking weed the way Endsars event went, nor did they make the playful and ranting Aisha Yesufu and falz A Bad Guy as a spokesperson. They were intellectuals; they understood the system and they penetrated it.

A closer example is the story of Obama. He was young. His skin color made it even worse for him to become a president in the land of white. He could be listening to DMX or 2PAC for motivation, but he did not.  Obama grew within the rank of people you will naturally see as trash, ‘the old people’ to get to the top.

I could remember in our Aluta days, not much can be achieved if we do not own some of the elders before Aluta continua. Lecturers are consulted in our plans for wisdom and secrets and so if the sky will fall it won’t cost us in the process of winning.

Let’s even look back more on some prominent agitation versus common sense. The liberation of the Black Americans from the White, unfortunately, started with ignorance, youthful exuberant and mindless agitation like the Endsars. This won the blacks nothing but hate and guns. Elijah Muhammad came up with an ‘Islam’ to fight the Whites just like they used Christianity to suppress Africans. But this amounted to nothing also as the idea is based on both hate and ignorance. The White are the ones with the power so you can’t outrun them. It took the knowledge and wisdom of Martin Luther King to stand right and Malcolm x to understand that Islam to liberation.

Guys just want to listen to themselves over and over again until the echo suggests to them, they are the voice of the people. The need to read and learnt the past is clouded by afro music and smart-looking tweets. The belief in insults, clap-backs and mockery is a way to fight and a sign of intelligence. Believe because some run tech hubs mean they are ripe enough to rule a country even without a political party or a sustained marriage. They wonder why you don’t rant with them because with your rant, a corrupt leader will resign. How Sowore easily faded from minds like a child throwing off a toy in the face of ice cream.

So, are the youths truly ready?

The system has made our education impotent and no one is sure their knowledge can stand what matters. Many are on drugs clouding their reasoning and to mention the old ones forget it is their responsibility to build the next generation even if all they care about is chatting and ranting on keypads. Until we are organized and get trained to learn the secrets, we will keep hoping for one of the old people that will be sent to build to deliver the nation, and that man can only be like Obama and not obi.

We are hoping the new regime will bring up the youth, not only by negative or positive encouragement but a conscious system to train younger ones in leadership to sustain their good work (If there is any). These youths shall co-exist with your children and if you mismanage them, they will collapse the system at the time it won’t be on your watch again. Apparently, the political prowess of Asiwaju is undeniable, so when he said “emi lo kan’ (it is my time now), we found it disgusting but logically acceptable since we are not blind, we could see the road map and footprint, we should learn from that.