There is a new wave of political awakening among young Nigerians following the victory of 39-year-old Emmanuel Macron in the May 7 French presidential poll.
The emergence of Macron, whom many now see as the new face of possibilities, in the French political space and his eventual defeat of Marine Le Pen, is serving as inspiration for the youths of Nigeria, spurring in them a new consciousness that with the right political mobilisation and action, they can still take charge and redeem their country.
Many young Nigerians, on social media and elsewhere, seem to have suddenly come to the realisation that their country has for too long been run by older people who have consistently failed the nation and its people. With Macron’s victory, many of them are squaring up to launch a serious political movement that will, hopefully, ensure greater youth participation in future elections and, more ambitiously, perhaps replicate the Macron magic in Nigeria.
“If we start a political party today or a political action committee, we might actually replicate in Nigeria Macron’s success in France. His party is just over a year old and they swept the presidential election with him at the top,” said Nkem Akinsoto, a US-based Nigerian female writer who runs the popular Naija Stories website.
“If presidency is too ambitious, can we win some LG councils or state assembly seats, maybe a state governorship?” she asked in a Facebook post early last week.
Macron, a pro-business centrist, defeated Marine Le Pen, a far-right female nationalist, by a vote of 66.06 percent to 33.94 percent, according to the French Interior Ministry.
In April last year, in his home town of Amiens in northern France, he launched En Marche, which he defined as “neither right, nor left”.
A groundswell of support
This new thinking is garnering a groundswell of support, with many expressing optimism that bringing about the change that all Nigerians earnestly yearn for is achievable if only the youths could forget their differences and pool their resources.
“I have been thinking along these lines too, especially about people under and in their 30s being in the House of Representatives,” Ifeoluwa Watson said on Facebook.
“If young people can make things go viral online, why can’t we also win elections? Yes, there are hurdles to cross but we need to start somewhere and when there’s uniformity of voices, it’s hard to push that down,” she said.
Chris Nwokobia, a 2011 presidential candidate under the platform of Liberal Democratic Party of Nigeria (LDPN), told BDSUNDAY on phone that young Nigerians, both home and abroad, are actually warming up for 2019 general elections since it is now clear to them that current leaders who have been on stage for over three decades lack the 21st Century leadership foresight Nigeria desperately needs.
“It is increasingly evident that these people can’t lead us anywhere because you can’t give what you don’t have. The change that we fought for is obviously not what we are seeing today. So, we have to organize for 2019. But the interesting thing is that these current leaders are not making it easier for an outsider to win election in Nigeria. We have to begin to think about how to push an idea, push a candidate, and push what I call ‘a ballot revolution’,” he said.
“Of the total 72 million registered voters, 70 percent of them are young people. Mobile phone service providers are saying that we have a total number of 115 million registered phone users; that means that the 70 percent registered voters are on social media.”
Tomi Wale-Temowo, creative and visual strategist, said Macron’s victory has buttressed his long-held position that these days government can win an election or be toppled via social media.
“The millennial generation are at the moment the most influential generation in terms of taking opinion, marketing, and even voting. We have more people from the ages of 18-40 in the voting processes than for people who are above these ages, given the normal life expectancy. They are called the millennial because they were born between 1980 and year 2000. This generation of people are now the ones making up that age. They are now in the forefront of advancement in the world,” he said.
“The people that fought Nigeria’s independence were not in their 40s. They were in their late 20s and early 30s. Nigerian millennial generation are angry but they don’t know how to direct their anger. Now they find the internet, and can sit down on the toilet seat and rant and nobody hears the voice. What happened in France can happen in Nigeria too.”
A new movement?
As the momentum builds, there is also a consensus of opinion among the youths that to make headway, it is better to form a new movement, just as Macron did, that will not necessarily be youth-only but at least youth-led and youth-dominated, unlike the existing big parties.
“APC and PDP are spent. They need us more than we need them. Will we continue surrendering ourselves to slave masters?” said Onyeka Miracle Dike on Facebook.
Macron did not go for any of the existing parties in France. Sure enough, he could have gone for the Socialist Party ticket, having worked under President Francoise Hollande, but, according to reports, he realised after years in power and dismal public approval ratings that the party’s voice would always struggle to be heard. So he looked at political movements that have sprung up elsewhere in Europe – Podemos in Spain, Five-Star Movement in Italy, etc – and saw that there was no equivalent game-changing political force in France.
In April 2016, he established his “people-powered” En Marche! movement and four months later stood down from President Hollande’s government.
The failure of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to fulfil the yearnings of the youth who massively supported him, online and offline, to defeat incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 had dispirited many young Nigerians, leading to a fresh yearning for change – a youth-led change. That yearning has already produced political party-like movements.
Progress Party
It was 29-year-old Onyeka Nwelue, a Nigerian writer, who first mooted the idea that led to the formation of what is now called Progress Party, although this movement is just online.
In a post on its Facebook page on Christmas Day 2016, Progress Party wrote: “A week ago, a few young Nigerians set the ball rolling for ‘the revolution’. Progress Party was born. In one week, thousands of Nigerians have been sensitized on the need for a progressive Nigeria. More young people are starting to realize that the future of Nigeria lies in our hands… and we are finally ready to stand up to ‘the cabal’.
“We celebrate the 2000 young people who have connected with Progress Party on Facebook and we invite more young people to get involved. Our time is Now. We are Ready to Lead.”
And on January 6, 2017, it wrote: “The old men who sold us out cannot bring us the change we seek. The old timers have profited from our complacent and nonchalant attitudes. For too long. It is time we stop waiting for salvation and take Nigeria back. Hope without work is useless. We are the ones we have been waiting for, we are the change we seek. And together, under the Progress Party, we will create our promised land.”
Ordinary People’s Party
Nwokobia, who contested the 2011 presidential election, said the movement towards registering the Ordinary People’s Party (OPP) is on and that Nigerians behind it are looking for ways to make it both an online and terrestrial movement.
“We are looking at campuses, we are looking at social clubs, we are looking at hotels and every available platform. We want to sell the idea of the fact that we can take our destinies in our hands and get these things fixed,” he said.
Asked if he would be contesting for the office of the president come 2019, he informed that at this level of mobilization, the OPP is currently talking to a lot of young people including Alistair Soyode, founder and chairman of Ben TV, and similar figures.
Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party
But it is perhaps the Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP), founded by Tope Fasua, CEO at Global Analytics Consulting Limited, that is making the greatest waves.
The party has a very representative national exco and has since applied to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for registration.
In a post on its website on March 7, the party said, “We wish to inform all our members, and the entire electorate in Nigeria, that your beloved political party, ANRP – ABUNDANT NIGERIA RENEWAL PARTY – received a ‘no-objection’ letter from our regulator, INEC, on Friday, March 3rd, 2017. With this, we are firmly recognised by INEC, and will proceed to fulfill other regulations necessary for enlistment on the ballot paper. We thank you all for your support.”
The party says it “is focused on bringing back the abundance for which Nigeria is known – in terms of human and material resources, and ensuring that that abundance is shared by all (shared prosperity)”.
It says it is also concerned with the need for a renaissance and renewal for the country, “a feat that will be achieved when dynamism is entrenched in the socio-political process and new ideas are brought on board, especially from Nigeria’s largest demographic – the youths”.
“The party therefore commits to increasing the participation of young people in the governance of their fatherland, without prejudice to, and without alienating other demographics, especially older people,” it adds.
Other sources of consciousness
Since the emergence of President Buhari in 2015 and the despondency that has followed, there have been several messages on social media calling the youths to action.
On WhatsApp, one such message entitled “Where did we go wrong? Wake up, Nigerian youths” reminds the youths that the key figures who led Nigeria into independence and those who continued to play key roles in its history thereafter were mostly under-40.
“Obafemi Awolowo was 37 years old, S. L. Akintola 36, Ahmadu Bello 36, Tafawa Balewa 34, Okotie-Eboh 27, and Enahoro 27 when they led the struggle for Nigeria’s Independence after the death of Herbert Macaulay. Only Nnamdi Azikiwe was 42 years old at the time!
“In January 1966, Kenneth Kaduna Nzeogwu was 29 years old when he led the first military coup, while the counter coup of July that year was led by 28-year-old Murtala Mohammed alongside Theophilus Danjuma (28), Ibrahim Babangida (25), J. Garba (23), Sani Abacha (23), and Shehu Musa Yar’Adua (23).
Yakubu Gowon was 32 when he took over power as military head of state in 1966; Ojukwu was 33, Obasanjo 29, and Buhari 24!
“Most of the military governors who governed the states under the successive military regimes were under 30 years. Also, the brief democratic dispensation which interjected the military interregnums also saw some senators and members of the House of Representatives, in particular, populated by persons under 30!
“Under 30’s were also not in short supply with appointments – we have examples of MT Mbu who became Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister at 23, and Pat Utomi who became a federal adviser at 27. And so on and so forth!” the message said.
It then questioned why those in that age bracket today are still sleeping in 3-seater chairs in their parents’ homes, collecting pocket money from their parents, are no longer qualified to even be leaders of youth wings of political parties, and so on.
Institutional and constitutional impediments
But amid this sweeping optimism, Richard Ali, a lawyer and writer, in a Facebook post drew attention to the structural defects in the Nigerian system that would possibly prevent a replication of the Macron magic here. Many of those who commented on his post agreed.
“That extant system that allowed Macron to emerge at such a youthful age and at the highest level of political governance does not exist here. A certain Macron at 39 would have waited here for one year to meet the constitutional bar of section 131(b) before he began his movement, waited on INEC to register his En Marche as a political party,” argued Abdul Mahmud, pointing to “institutional and constitutional bars” in the Nigerian system.
This is why Nwokobia believes that for the current optimism of the youths to bear fruit, there is need for Nigerians to ask for a legislation that would allow Nigerians in Diaspora to vote come 2019. He adds that if the bill is eventually passed into law, about 5 million Nigerians who are resident in different countries can vote in embassies and online and that will make a huge impact.
“The bill is already before the National Assembly. I think some of the lawmakers are already getting the wind of what is happening. The bill that they passed on collation of results in polling units it is their greatest undoing; it means that at that points where most elections are rigged may just be difficult for them now,” he said.
“If from the polling centres election results are posted they are going to have problem if they attempt doctoring the results posted already. All things being equal, the level of transparency in the next election will definitely be higher.”
Former President Jonathan had said in 2011, while answering to questions from Nigerians living in Ethiopia where he was attending an African Union summit, that he would work on getting Nigerians in the Diaspora to vote in the 2015 elections.
“Presently, the law does not allow voting outside Nigeria, but I will work towards it by 2015,” Jonathan had said.
That was never to be.
What Macron did right
One right move analysts agree Macron made was inclusion of the grassroots. Having established En Marche!, he took his cue from Barack Obama’s grassroots 2008 US election campaign, says Paris-based freelance journalist Emily Schultheis.
Though it’s been said that his wife, 64-year-old Brigitte Trogneux Macron, played an instrumental role in his campaign and that her presence was “essential” for Macron throughout the campaign, there is no doubt that Macron did what needed to be done.
His first major undertaking was the Grande Marche (Big March), when he mobilised his growing ranks of energised but inexperience En Marche activists.
“The campaign used algorithms from a political firm they worked with – who by the way had volunteered for the Obama campaign in 2008 – to identify districts and neighbourhoods that were most representative of France as a whole,” Schultheis says. “They sent out people to knock on 300,000 doors.”
The volunteers didn’t just hand out flyers – they carried out 25,000 in-depth interviews of about 15 minutes with voters across the country. That information was entered into a large database which helped inform campaign priorities and policies.
“It was a massive focus group for Macron in gauging the temperature of the country but also made sure that people had contact with his movement early on making sure that volunteers knew how to go door to door. It was a training exercise that really laid the groundwork for what he did this year,” Schultheis explains.
Moreover, Macron had a positive message, as opposed to his rival Le Pen, whose message, according to one report, came across as negative – anti-immigration, anti-EU, anti-System.
“He’s young, full of energy, and he’s not explaining what he’ll do for France but how people will get opportunities. He is the only one to have this kind of message,” says Schultheis.
Macron campaign rallies featured brightly-lit arenas blaring with pop music, while Marine Le Pen’s mass meetings involved protesters throwing bottles and flares, a heavy police presence, dark audience stands and an “angrier” undercurrent. The big TV debate on 3 May was an angry affair, with a string of insults hurled by both sides, says Schultheis.
Macron insists he is “neither of the Left or the Right” but “for France.” A pro-business reformist, he is firmly on the left on social issues, including on the freedom to practise religion in a secular state, equality and immigration.
A former investment banker, Macron served for two years under President Francois Hollande as minister of economy, industry, and digital data but had never held elected office. He only truly entered the public discourse when he rebelled against Hollande’s Socialist Party and ran as an independent presidential candidate for his En Marche, or Onwards, movement.
Macron cut his teeth in the world of finance by working from 2008-2012 as a banker for Rothschild. While there he brokered a €9 billion takeover of a Pfizer subsidiary by Nestlé, which made him a millionaire.
Macron started his working life as a finance inspector at the Inspectorate General of Finances in the Ministry of Economy from 2004 to 2008.
His aim, he said, was to win over a majority of French people to “new ideas for the country” that could be implemented in the future. He said he wanted to “pull France into the 21st Century”.
“That’s the only ambition one should have. It’s radical, it seems a bit crazy talking about it tonight, but there is such energy in the country”, he said, a sign of his positive vision for France which helped him win over so many voters during his campaign.
Macron qualified for the runoff after the first round of the election on April 23, 2017. He won the second round of the presidential election on May 7, according to preliminary results; the candidate of the National Front, Marine Le Pen, conceded.
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