Social Media and Governance

Dear friends. It is quite obvious facebook is becoming boring to some folks. Guess what? I happen to be part of those folks. A lot of people are migrating to other social media most especially twitter. The essence of social media is indeed interaction. As such, it doesn’t matter if it is facebook, linkedin or twitter. Making the best use of all these medium can go a long way in enriching our souls and informing us adequately about all information we may need in our everyday activities.

To digress a little bit; this is not about social media and please don’t read this stuff half way. Endure to read it to the end no matter how unimportant or boring it seems. A lot is happening within the shores of Nigeria and it has been happening right from the days of our independence. Politics as shifted from service to the peasants and the generality of the people; to filling pockets and bank accounts of political office holders. Successive government seems to be breaking the corruption index records of previous government.

My belief until few months ago was that politics is for the corrupt. Please don't be prejudicial or insinuate yet. Politics isn't for the corrupt. We left politics for the corrupt (either they became corrupt therein or they were innately corrupt). The question of which political party to join also comes to mind – those that are not corrupt. As of today in Nigeria, I can't find any political party with clear-cut ideology and manifesto that can and will be truly implemented. Nonetheless, that is not a good reason to still let politics remain with the corrupt. Come to think of it, while in elementary school, we were told we are the future of tomorrow (today). How come we are not in the real sense of it? Is it because we failed to demand for what is ours? There is a popular adage which says ' if you can’t beat them, join them'. However, we don't have to join them. We can create a new order. We can't secure the future of our children with corrupt clueless leaders. Our children must not go through what we are going through. Our children can't be slaves to children of the corrupt capitalist after all the education we strive to give them. 

Why can't we start a small cell within our little locality? Why can't we speak to friends, neighbours and colleagues about shaping the future? We can’t secure the future individually. A united people demanding change in a ward is enough to ouster the councillor. The road will be tough and rough but we can only try. We can't keep complaining when we have not made any effort to correct the anomaly. It is left to you and I. Several of us ignored politics and till date, the corrupt rode on our docility. We left them to do what they like and today the NASS can successfully legalize their own corruption. The corrupt leaders are almost impossible to prosecute as the judiciary now connives with them. Don’t be fooled by cosmetics works and surface paintings on infrastructures. Don’t be fooled by flowers. Don’t be fooled by assisted projects and don’t be fooled by projects which we don’t know the financial implication. Don’t be fooled by sweet words. Don’t be fooled by crumbs being offered to you by politicians or their cronies. I can boldly say that the best state in this country offers less than 10% of what the citizens deserve. We can’t continue this way. We must act. Let’s interact.

Back to social media (after a long digression)

You can follow me on twitter @odeshinabola where a lot is going on or we can interact here too. Let us start asking questions. Let us start making our demands. Nigeria belongs to all of us. Your ignorance or indifference will go a long way in affecting each and every one of us adversely.