Jude Feranmi (JFK) is the National Youth Leader of KOWA Party and the author of “Youth Pragmatic for Change”. He is a young Nigerian, passionate about making Nigeria work. While some Nigerians assume the country is not worth dying for, JFK believes Nigeria is filled with big potentials, that citizens through joint effort should insist that that potentials must come to reality. For JFK, Nigeria is worth living for. He spoke with Samuel Oyejola on youth inclusiveness in political leadership and the patronage system in Nigeria politics. Excerpts,
There are various ways of rendering service to the society, why did you choose politics?
I understand (that is one of the things I want young people to understand) the primacy of politics in building a nation for all and sundry. Our country has failed to fulfill its potentials because we underestimate, a lot of time, primacy of politics in getting to where we want to get them. We want Abuja to be the Dubai of Africa, we want the southwest to be the technology hub of the world and we fail to understand that politics has a primary role to play in that space. I could as well be doing a lot of things like business or entertainment. Yes, if I am not into politics I would as well be into entertainment, the business aspect of it.
At the end of it, politics really determines how far you can go about it. It determines how rich even the people in that country can be; it determines the limit of your wealth. Remember during the FOREX crisis the richest man in Africa; Aliko Dangote lost a fraction of his wealth because of the political decision in the country.
One of the things that strike me is the fact that we have not been able to understand how important politics is as a society. We have to understand the decision that politics takes in our lives. No matter how hard working you are or how intentional about the good things happening in this country, it will get to a point you will realize that political decisions are the most important decisions in our society yet nobody is paying attention to that. That primacy of politics is what I understood at a very early age.
What is your impression on young Nigerians’ participation in politics?
I sincerely want to stop talking about youth inclusion in politics because when you say young politicians what that tends to portray is the youth participation in the politics realm, not really about the issues that bedevil our country.
When you see old politicians you take him on issues on economy, health, politics in his parties, even though they also don’t have the ideas. I believe that Nigeria has a long way to go if we put our ideas to test. There is a need for us to start putting these ideas and asking these ideas even from younger politicians.
One of the ideas, I agree is inclusion. Not just inclusion in politics for young people but inclusion in politics as a whole. You have an entire minority that the nation is not tapping into, women, people living with disabilities; I understand that there are about 27.5 million people living with disabilities.
Our political sphere does not take into cognizance the fact that young people are here and they have a lot to offer. You see a lot of other young people satisfy with the crumbs that they give them as Special Assistants, Personal Assistants and others. There is a lot more that can happen if you allow young and competent people to come into the arena.
What I have realized is that there is a wave of young people coming into politics today especially with the advent of Not Too Young To Run bill that is in the process of being transmitted to the President to sign.
A lot of young people are also showing up to participate in the political space. But what is most important in all these is that young people who show up are young people that are competent. When a lot of people talk about young people in politics they (especially the old people) find a way to skew that narratives into saying it is not really about young people but young people with ideas.
You don’t agree that young politicians must learn the ropes from the older generation?
We must ensure that while we are bringing in young people, the young people we are bringing in are those with ideas; great leaders. In 1960s when Nigeria got independence, the young people who got the independence for this country were young people with ideas, young people with vision.
It was not that in that age we do not have young people without ideas. There were young touts, if you remember the story of wet ti e, they were young people but they were touts but they were not the ones in leadership positions as oppose to what we stand the risk of now in our generation whereby we have young people but young people who don’t have ideas, who are benefiting from the patronage system and have every cause to insist that that patronage system remains.
By demography youths are the highest constituent in political parties. Isn’t that a mile stone?
We need to be able to define correctly what we mean by participation. Participation at what level? Are you saying at the leadership level or the entire process? If it is at the entire process, young people are the major people participating in politics in Nigeria today. Take the violence that happened in the last Ekiti State APC gubernatorial primaries, who were the people that carried out the violence? Young people! If they were not there, they wouldn’t be able to do all that.
Take a look at all the political strategies and political campaigns that all these old people used to get elected, find out the core people in the strategy committee who bring in the ideas, take publicity and advertising, implement the very novel ideas that get them elected, they are young people.
We also run a risk of thinking that being in the process also means participating in the process especially at the leadership level. In the leadership position in politics, are young people there? The answer is no.
If it is participation across board, young people are already participating. If it is participation in leadership position, bringing the ideas of this 21st century into legislation, executing project and really what the future holds for this country then we are not in that space.
But the problem is that there is a patronage system that ensures that we run a gerontocracy system in the country. Young people cannot aspire to leadership position of our country. So no matter what you do as a young person working for a legislature it is the ideas of the legislature that come into fruition. If the legislature doesn’t think you will be able to engage with his constituency more through the social media, then no matter how social media savvy you are there is nothing that will happen in that regard. No matter how brilliant your ideas are about an organisation if the old person who is a leader thinks your ideas does not matter you will just be getting salaries and nothing will happen.
The older generation is not ready to relinquish power to the younger generation, what can the young politicians do to take strategic leadership positions?
They say young people in Nigeria have to take it by force because the old people will not leave. We really need to start looking at the parameters of how the younger people in 1960 got to power, and compare it to the parameters today. If I was in the military in the 1960s perhaps I would have been Head of State, because it was through the barrel of the guns.
When you ask young people to take power through the ballot, you don’t compare their strives and their efforts, the happenings in that space and the challenges to picking up a gun, going to a media house to take charge by force. You don’t really need any particular skills; maybe you need to know how to shoot a gun. So you see a lot of people who have taken power through the barrel say stuffs like young people need to take it by force. If you want us to take it by force give us guns and see if we wouldn’t shoot. That is one side.
The other side is understanding that the world has moved pass the time of fighting. It is not particularly advisable and it is not in the best interest of the people that we take power by force or by the barrel of a gun but by the ballot. But we must understand that the challenges are different. We need to have somebody who is young and understand that he has to go through the process.
Late General Sani Abacha was 23 years old when he participated in a coup. Today, if you are 23 years old you cannot even be in the NDA. Because before you get into NDA there may be some nepotistic challenges that you have to face.
So how can young people participate in politics? For me it is by understanding that through the ballot there is a process. So the earlier you get into that process the earlier you can be able to emerge under a political platform with your ideas.
The ultimate goal of why we are doing this is to be able to transform Nigeria from where it is right now from where we want it to be. Going into that process, joining a political party and engaging in that process is important for young people. It is very important and cannot be underestimated. There would be challenges. Like one of my friends in the university will say “it is easier to convince somebody with a word of persuasion and a gun than to convince somebody alone with just a word of persuasion. Through the ballot you have to persuade people and this day money is a very important factor in that. You have to go through the process and ensure that people you are able to persuade in your constituency or in your political platform understands that these are the ideas.
The weapon we have as young people today is not even money, because we don’t have that money. It is the ideas that we have and the efforts we are willing to put in that process. Through the ballots, these old people have the money but they don’t have the ideas. This day it is easier to persuade somebody with money than to persuade somebody with ideas, especially if the older generations have ensured that the majority of the people always need money.
As a young person in politics, how do you encourage other young people to also aspire to take leadership positions in politics rather than just participate in politics?
The best form of leadership is by example. To the glory of God I have heard people say that they have been inspired by the example I have. I have heard a number of people who are now elected in positions of other party platforms say that I inspired them to take that action.
I believe that that is the most important part of getting young people to participate. We need more role models. I will give you an example. Cyber crime is increasing in Nigeria today because there are more cyber crime role models who are” successful”. If you encourage something the value will appreciate. We need to engage that same process into getting young people into politics by saying this is how young people can get involve. That is one.
The second thing is to be able to push forward activities. There is a lot that is currently happening within the space for young people participating in politics. You have YIAGA, Youngsters Foundation all doing great works. These are activities that provide a platform for young people to be able to easily engage and form a community of young people.
The media have a very vital role to play in amplifying the voices and people who can be voices and role models to young people. When you see somebody who is doing great stuffs who is participating in that process, facing the challenges but overcoming the challenges, the more young people will say we can do it. It takes a lot of time for this process to emerge but the more role models we have.
Individually, I believe strongly that we need a political platform that is conducive for the average Nigerian. This is why I believe KOWA Party for what we have one is the most youthful inclusive party in Nigeria. If you go to some parties you will see that if you are a young person with ideas you are enemy number one.
Why voted 170 million for big brother Nigeria? That is to tell you that there is a lot of energy in that space. You can say the priorities are wrong that we are focusing on big brother Nigeria, but have you gone through the process of getting to register for a voter card? For you to vote in big brother Nigeria, just pick up your phone and have #30 on your phone.
Why did you choose KOWA Party instead of the two prominent APC and PDP?
My ideas or aspirations will not be fast track in APC or PDP, that is a fact, because I will be a poster boy. I will be a P.A. There are lots of my friends who are SAs or PAs to many of these politicians. I am not particularly brilliant, I know people who are way more brilliant than I am, who have a very good grasp of history of this nation than I currently have. They are in APC, they are in PDP, but nobody knows them. They are not known not because they are not popular in that sense, but because it is very difficult for you as a young person to thrive in those spaces because it is run by a patronage system. This patronage system works for their agenda, for the objectives that they have set for themselves. My agenda is different and a patronage system will not work for that agenda.
My family in Osun state is vast in PDP. The current state party Chairman of the party in Osun State starts politics in my grandfather’s house. I can pick up the phone and call him. If tomorrow I decide to go into PDP he will be happy to embrace me. But five years after that you will not hear from JFK because I have to go through a queue before I can even be able to have the opportunities to air those ideas we are talking about and we do not have the time for this generation.
2019 is coming ahead, 2023 is coming. If we do not have the opportunity to do anything tangible in 2023, our generation is far gone. Maybe we will by then become a failed generation if we do nothing in 2019 and2023. That is why for me, it became an issue of we need to be able to find a political party that is all inclusive for Nigerian youth. That is my own situation. There are lots of young Nigerian youths out there who are thinking and saying this party is not conducive for me and that is why I am not interested in politics.
We need to create a platform of a political party that is inclusive for the young Nigerian. Before I joined KOWA Party I research a lot of other parties. The former youth leader before me was 25 years old in 2013 when he emerged as the national Youth Leader of the party. You cannot see any state leader in KOWA party that is more than 35 years old.
Beyond the national youth leadership across all boards the state chairmen of our party in Osun State is not 26 years old. The state chairman in Ebonyi state just got married. We need to create that party platform that is conducive for the young Nigerians. Say if you are interested in politics this is the platform that is interested in your ideas and gives life to your aspirations and then the idea will not be to line our pockets. The agenda will be tied to a future that we will all be proud of.
By the time you look at the patronage system in APC and PDP, how many of the leaders in APC and PDP today do we believe will be alive in the next 30 years? How many of them? So what stake do they have in the future that they will not be part of?
Political parties in Nigeria lack clear cut ideology. What is unique about KOWA Party in this regards?
Let me take you back to the Action Group of the Obafemi Awolowo, Ayo Adebanjo and co. They had an idea, which is where ideology really comes from. They had an idea about how to change the society. That is an ideology. How do we run government? How do we impact our people? What ideas do we have?
Free education for example was not a popular idea in the country. It was not! But Obafemi Awolowo who led the AG believes that education is the leveler and a right that must be given freely. In the part that the AG controlled, which is the South-West Free education was right. A lot of these leaders who now say free education can no longer be affordable benefitted from that scheme of the Action Group.
That is for a party that is thinking about how to change a society. If you are not thinking about how to change the society you cannot have any ideas. If the priority of your thinking is how to line your pocket, how to become rich, how to ensure that you lay something for your children’s children, you cannot in the same vein be thinking about how to change the society. Then if you are not thinking about changing the society then where are your ideas? There is no ideology. That is where Nigeria has descended into.
If we have a political platform (which is where KOWA Party comes in) that is saying how do we change the society? How do we benefit our people? How do we get from where we are right now to a Nigeria where the basic things of lives are guaranteed fort average citizens, that is where your ideas comes from.