Thread by @ayooladejo, Who is afraid of a leaderless agitation?I have been thinking of the [...]

Who is afraid of a leaderless agitation?
I have been thinking of the reason certain people are insistent on a small group of people negotiating with government.
It is format and it has served the purpose of repressive regimes over the years.
A long thread
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Remember the Tower of Babel in the Bible? That part of the scripture demonstrates the power in numbers. God Himself said that the people will achieve whatever they wanted if they remained United.
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The Yorubas talk about how easy it is to break a few strands of brooms but difficult to break a whole pack. Try it yourself and see how tough it is.
The bees may have a queen but you don’t see the Queen. The workers and soldiers are the ones you see.
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The most useless piece on the chess board is the King. Such a powerless piece protected by the other pieces on the board.
The fact is that it is easy to manipulate a small committee if the movement is still early and resolve is not strong enough.
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I remember the days of the Oshiomole NLC. I used to tell people that time that his negotiations with the government were farce. He always ended up agreeing to terms that Nigerians didn’t want. It wasn’t compromise. It was pre-determined.
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Same things played out in those days in NANS. They mostly agreed to things that Nigerian students didn’t want once they get behind closed doors. In Ife, it was harder for SUG to mess up because Aluta was a mass action. We asked VCs to come speak to all of us at Amphi.
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We got the best results when deliberations were made in public. The few times we failed were when a few reps met too early behind closed doors. When closed doors happen later after the struggle has been properly established - it works better.
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Now let’s talk about the concept of leadership. I have a post from more than ten years ago where I broke down how bad a leader OBJ was.
OBJ was the kind of leader who wants to be relevant forever. He doesn’t want his successors to outshine him.
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He is the opposite of the Level 5 leader described by Jim Collins in Good to Great. The need to be missed after leaving power is deep in such people. Once they feel they are no longer relevant, they lose their toys. That was why OBJ gave us a sick man as president.
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Just imagine that OBJ punished us for not accepting his third term agenda. He chose a sick man and then a weaker VP. He shunned stronger VP candidates.
It is a narcissistic tendency and the ripple effect of that decisions haunts us today.
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Buhari becoming president is a consequence of that decision OBJ made and so when OBJ writes his letters now, I am tempted to remind him that he set the course for a president that was so bad that people wanted a stone to replace him.
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And this brings me to the likes of Sega. Sega wants leaders for the movement. He automatically would think he is the leader. He is a man that wants to be seen and heard. He loved the power when he helped many people with Police problem.
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Sega like OBJ has very good sides. It would be preposterous to deny the good he did. OBJ and his Telecoms Revolution and debt cancellations.
But to be a complete leader, you need to know when to let go. It is an important component of leadership.
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See, Nigerian youths are not oblivious of the fact that this movement has leaders; they just know that it is not time to pressurize them and expose them to the evil manipulations of our rulers who know how to dilute the effect of such a movement.
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Right now, the right approach is to get the Nigerian strongmen to realize that this is not like before. That there is staying power and that we can truly organize without exposing a few people as targets. That is what is paining both those who love attention and govt.
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Never in their dreams did they think it was possible for young Nigerians to have such long staying power. And without a messiah mentality from the people working their bones off. It bothers them. And so you become an enemy of Nigeria and it’s youth if you sabotage.
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And once you called these people cultists and refer to protesters as criminals, you lost goodwill. It shows your desperation and destroys any little faith in your intentions.
We are not looking for people to be saved via calls.
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What we want is another approach. And only the deliberately blind would say nothing is changing. Awkwuzu Nwafor guy was untouchable until a few days ago. Many buried stories are coming out. A consciousness we haven’t see before is happening.
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So it is disingenuous for anyone to think this is not working.
Yes, very soon when government shows they are truly listening aka when we don’t see Osun state governor’s security details killing protesters - sitting in rooms can start happening.
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Believe it, young Nigerians are not dumb. They are just not interested in some pseudo activism and premature closed door negotiations that empirically have proven not to work in the past. We only win well when we don’t ignore the past. Else, we practice insanity.
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My sincere thanks to all those putting in the hardwork and not seeking glory.
And I pray that those who are today feeling left out would see reasons and come back to the real battle- the one for the soul of Nigeria.
God bless you all.
#EndSARS

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