First Baba Isa|9 June 2017
36. Social media, especially Facebook, has become a leveler. Everyone has become equal. There is an advantage to this but let me first of all point out one of the injurious disadvantages to young people: it gives a false sense of importance.
You will see a young person with a Facebook account, 5000 friends (or far less) and some followers truly thinking he has arrived politically. Because he goes about commenting (most times, even insulting) on the posts of governors, party chieftains, ministers, presidential aides and even the president, he thinks he is now their equal or he is an influential member of the society. This is how owning a Facebook account misleads a lot of young people of the true value of their worth, politically or otherwise.
37. I see young people trying to call a protest by using hashtags. You think you can cause a major change by posting that your badly written article, without even proper spellings and paragraphing? No, dear youth, real life don't work like that.
First, identify a goal, let's say in politics, then identify a political base or constituency and start building a team and networking with others. That's how elections are won. That's how to wrestle power from the hands of incumbents.
Nobody will give us power because we are creating hashtags, tweeting or updating our Facebook status calling on the elders to die or retire for us to take over. It's not done anywhere. That's not how Emmanuel Macron did it. It's laziness and ignorance that will make a youth sit down and wish that the older generation should die off or retire and hand him power on a platter of gold.
Well, this is not going to happen, so let's get off our butts and work.
38. The hard fact is that social media has made it easier for this generation to win political power more than any generation before us. The reach of social media cannot be overestimated. It's allure is massive and in the hands of a young person who knows what he is doing, it's a great tool.
Maybe a time will come when social media will be the only tool for organising teams, building networks, running a campaign and winning elections; but right now in our present political ecosystem, it's not.
We need to form or join political parties, organize people and materials from our immediate political constituencies, network and build alliances.
39. We need to ask ourselves some tough questions. Beyond Facebook likes, how many persons can you gather in your political ward or local government or state or country? Apart from Facebook groups, how many networks, associations or alliances do you belong to? How many persons do you mentor? How many persons look up to you as a voice or influence? Can you pull out 500 or even 100 persons to follow you or anyone you recommend on short notice?
Beyond hashtags and Facebook posts, what impact are you making in your immediate constituency? What personal projects are you executing? Are you building bridges across boards or you are on social media fighting fellow youths and insulting elders? In what areas are you building capacity? What office are you preparing for? What is your personal political ideology?
40. Young people need to develop a personal strategy to become political assets. Whether you run for office or not in 2019, you must build and position yourself to be relevant to the actors and actions of 2019.
Build a team or network or join one. Increase your networking skills. Polish your online presence: stop posting badly written articles, going around insulting and fighting everyone on Facebook makes you look like a tout not an intellectual.
Stop being disrespectful to elders. Don't be ignorant of the fact that you will need them. Engage them. Debate them. Hard. But don't insult them.
Stop using fellow young people and dumping them. Stop cheating yourselves. Stop forming groups just to further your selfish interests.
Build capacity. Step out and lead.
#JustMyThoughts
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Firsts Baba Isa (FBI) is a Legal Practitioner and social commentator
