The Next Big Thing : 20MillionYouthsFor2015
Hello Friend,
I am excited to announce to you the birth of #20MillionYouthsFor2015. You have received this mail because you signified interest in knowing what this project entails.
#20MillionYouthsFor2015, in my thinking, is the ONLY solution to the Nigerian challenge. I will like to go straight to the details of this concept.
Name: Why #20MillionYouthsFor2015? For me, I have never hidden my belief that the generations before us failed us. They failed in leadership. They also failed in followership. While a good number of our parents held strongly to the values with which they were raised, many of their peers who got into government destroyed the country using corruption as their major tool. My grouse against the remaining good ones, my own parents inclusive, was their inaction against their fellows who treated Nigeria like it didn’t belong to them as well. This is why I think that this movement - though may not just be membered by only youths - should be youth-dominated. I think it should be driven by the strength of the young people.
Aim: The aim is to change the course of governance, not from the sidelines this time , but from inside the system. We should be tired of just becoming critics. We owe our generation the duty of saving this country, building it to a force to be respected in the world, and passing down to our children a nation they can be proud of.
The summary of the plan is to raise an army of 20 million people, mostly youths, who’ll organize themselves, pick an intelligent, courageous, transparent and detribalized candidate for the 2015 elections and run his/her campaign from ground up. A very key part of this plan is to cut off the involvement of godfathers in the emergence of our candidate by raising money, from our pockets, and sponsoring the person. I am proposing that each of the 20 million persons contributes just N1000 (or less) for the project. Raising money from a few people who believe in a candidate isn’t a novel idea. It is the same old strategy that has largely handed Nigeria over to a few unpatriotic people. We hope to change all that now.
Contribution Ceiling: We understand that the youths and women are the worst hit by hardship in Nigeria. It is not all members who may be able to afford the N1000 contribution fee. For this reason, we may take contributions from members who wish to give beyond N1000. BUT NOBODY IS PERMITTED TO GIVE BEYOND N50,000. We wouldn’t want to dislodge one cabal just to build another one. (This is subject to downwards review by members)
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS MONEY IS GOING TO BE THE LAST THING WE SHOULD TALK ABOUT. THE MONEY SHOULD ONLY BE RAISED A FEW MONTHS TO THE ELECTIONS. BY THEN WE WOULD HAVE BUILT AN ORGANISATION THAT RUNS LIKE A FRICTIONLESS MACHINE.
If members endorse this, then we start thinking of how best to go about it to make it impossible for ANYBODY to have access to the funds. We will also come up with ideas on how to make it easy for those in the rural areas (where there may be no banks) to contribute their money without the risk of people running away with the money.
THE RECEIPT OF THIS MAIL SHOULD PLACE A DEMAND ON YOU TO TASK YOUR BRAIN ON HOW TO WORK WITH THE MASS OF PEOPLE IN THE RURAL AREAS.
STRUCTURE And ORGANIZATION: I propose a Cell System. The cell is the smallest unit of an organism. Let the lifeblood of this movement be centered on the cell system. This ensures we have established presence in every community in Nigeria. The cell system takes us to the grassroots.
How It Works: A cell should be made up of 20 to 30 members. The maximum should be 30. Once a cell grows to a membership level of 30, it splits. Depending on the population of a community, 5 – 7 Cells become a Community Monitoring Unit (CMU). All the CMUs in a Local Government will become the Local Government Chapter. All the Local Government Chapters in a State become the State Chapter. All State Chapters in any Geopolitical Zone will form the Regional Chapter of the movement. The regional chapters become the National Movement.
In belonging to a cell, proximity is important. It is advisable that a member joins a cell not far from him/her. The location of the cell from a member’s house should be a walking distance. Individuals can start up cells in their houses. No point hiring a hall or hotel space. Part of what we must do is to LEARN TO ACHIEVE THINGS WITHOUT SPENDING MONEY.
Leadership: At every level of the movement, there should be leadership. At the Cell level, I propose 5 leadership positions: 1. Chairman, 2. Secretary, 3. Leader (I’ll explain this), 4. Chief Whip, 5. Treasurer
Leader: This position, in my thinking, SHOULD ONLY BE AVAILABLE AT THE CELL LEVEL. Let it be an automatic position for whoever starts up a cell. Let the person hold it for one year, after which s/he ceases to become. But if s/he contests for other positions, the post can be occupied by the next person to have followed the cell originator. This is certainly a temporary arrangement that will be expunged as soon as the movement takes firm root. This will not be allowed at any other level of the movement. ONLY AT THE CELL LEVEL. It is a way to encourage people to start up new cells and build them. The “Leader” should always be present at every exco meeting of the cell. But he isn’t the head of the cell. The chairman is. Every other position should be contested in a transparent manner.
The primary duty of the Leader is orientation of members. Every new way of doing things which we preach must be communicated to members by the Leader. In every cell meeting, there must be 30 minutes of talk on good governance and responsible followership.
Every cell should meet ONCE in a month.
All cell leadership positions expire yearly. There will be election of exco members every 12 calendar months.
CMU Leadership: At the CMU level, I propose 7 leadership positions: 1. Chairman, 2. Secretary, 3. Chief Whip, 4. Vice Chairman, 5. Publicity Secretary, 6. Orientation Officer. 7. Liaison Officer.
Every CMU(All Members) should meet once in 2 months. At the Cell and CMU levels, there will be a membership drive outreach after each meeting day. The meetings will be closed on time so as to allow members collectively go out on a door-to-door membership drive.
Leadership at this level gets due for change every 12 calendar months.
Local Government Leadership: The number of leadership positions here shouldn’t exceed 9. In my thinking, the offices in a CMU can be replicated at the Local Government level with an additional 2 –( Treasurer and Auditor). The treasurer will report the financial position of the LG Chapter working with the Cells and CMUs while the auditor goes through their records and reports to the state Audit Committee. The LG Chapters should meet once in a quarter.
Leadership at this level and other levels above it should be due for change every 24 calendar months.
State Chapter Leadership: This chapter should meet once every 4 months. The leadership position here will be the same as that of the LG Chapters. But there should be 3 standing committees of 5 members each. The Committees are:
Research, Strategy and Implementation
Audit
NYSC
Zonal Chapter Leadership: Comprises of the VP on that zone and the leaders of the state which make it up. Their primary role will be to assess performances of states under their region and come up with strategies on how to boost image, membership growth and membership education.
Research, Strategy and Implementation: This committee will have the duty of liaising with a similar committee at the national level. Their job is to constantly brainstorm and research on what works and what has worked for other democracies and similar movements (if they ever existed, in any part of the world). In performing this task, this committee will put into consideration the peculiarities of the state and its people. The goal should always be how to evolve unbeatable strategies for our movement. How do we destroy their rigging machine? How do we attract people to our movement? How do we get better? This committee will help us out at the state level.
Audit: This committee will receive reports from the auditor at the local government level. They’ll review his work and look into the books of the LG Chapter. The major work here is the rural areas where technology hasn’t penetrated. Accountability isn’t an option. It is the only way for us. We can’t be seeking alternative to evil and then get ourselves involved in fraud or opaqueness in our modus operandi.
NYSC: Corps Members get to every corner of this country. Our target should be to make every one of them members of this movement. From the orientation camp in the state, the NYSC committee has a duty to reach out to the corps members, get them involved and encourage them to join an existing cell or found one in their PPAs. This is a critical part of our membership drive. THIS IS NOT TO BE IGNORED FOR ANY REASON.
National Leadership: At this level, every position should have a deputy. The office Vice Chairman, however, will be six in number, each representing a region. There should be 4 standing committees:
Research, Strategy and Implementation
Audit
NYSC
Committee on Diaspora.
The Committee on diaspora will be working closely with Nigerians in the diaspora. They’ll seek to enlist as many of them as possible. They’ll also relate with them in other capacities. The other three remain as proposed with respect to states except that the members will understand that the whole country is their catchment area.
Board Of Governors: This will be the second highest decision-making body of the movement. The first is the National Convention in which every member is expected to be in attendance. The BOG will comprise of every chairman of the movement at the cell, CMU, LG and State levels, the National Executive council, and all the standing committees at the state and national levels. The BOG will meet once in a quarter to review the activities of the National leadership as it impacts on the vision and mission of the movement.
Method of Becoming a Leader in the Movement: Apart from the leader at the Cell level, every other position MUST be contested for. An aspiring leader must belong to a CELL. The cell is the family. Nobody will fall from the moon to contest anything. The CMU and LGs must prove to the State, Regional and National Chapters that a particular candidate for any position ACTUALLY BELONGS to a cell. His/her attendance must be verifiable. We’ll design cell registers for all the cells. Everybody has the right to aspire to any position with the movement.
I think nobody should handle two positions at the same time. (But like every other line in this road map, this is subject to amendment from you. We seek ideas, and superior ideas will fly here.)
No leader from now to 2015 should run for office. The major task should be to build a movement that will stand firm. It won’t be strategic to allow for distractions for the leadership of the movement. (Strictly my opinion and subject to your approval)
SELECTION OF OUR PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE
In Case We Have Many Good
Candidates: The candidates will all have to convince us to vote them. My idea is that the candidates will move from state to state, convincing our members in each of those states on why they should be chosen. All the candidates will visit the same state the same day. They’ll address our members in the state and thereafter the votes will be cast, counted and results declared.
Bribing our members to vote a candidate will be considered a serious offence. We will have an option, in our constitution, of prosecuting such candidates.
DO WE ALSO CHOOSE GOVERNORS?
Yes, but we have to build enough numbers in the communities, LGs and States to be able to make enough impact in gubernatorial contests.
Other Issues
Are we going to register? I think so. We need to have a formal presence. We need to have shape and form.
What are we registering as? NGO? Political Party? I leave that to you to decide with reasons.
Is it just about 2015? How about today? We have 2015 as our medium term goal. We must maintain the pressure now to reduce waste in government, fight corruption and reduce government ineptitude. We also must speak out against government’s incompetence in handling the state of insecurity plaguing the nation.
Changing the way elections are handled will create the opportunity for us to change Nigeria for good.
Any age range? My thinking is: for men, we may fix an age limit (15-55) for women, no age ceiling.
Why fixing an age range? I feel we have a need to discriminate against those who wrecked Nigeria. The more we stay away from them, the less the temptation to fall for their bribes. (My personal opinion)
Any age limit for those we’ll adopt for positions? I don’t think there should be. But Intelligence, Track record of transparency, Courage to fight corruption, and being detribalized must be proven by us before we even give them the opportunity to meet with our members.
If your religion is more important to you than our shared humanity, then go join your church or mosque group. This place isn’t for you.
If your tribe is more important to you than the poverty that faces us, there are several tribal and ethnic organizations you can join. This place isn’t for you.
Our website is ready. We are willing to expand the number of the admin members to accommodate you.
We have our Facebook page up. Our Twitter account is ready too.
Our Logo is ready. If you have a superior idea, we can all see what you have, debate on it and possibly adopt it.
Here are they:
Website: www.20millionyouthsfor2015.org; Facebook: www.Faceboook.com/20millionyouthsfor2015
Twitter: @20millionyouths; email: Info@20millionyouthsfor2015.org
We all will need to register at the website. Kindly give your details there. They won’t be disclosed to anybody.
HELP FROM PROFESSIONALS:
Lawyers: If you are a lawyer, you may have to start thinking towards the development of a constitution for us based on this draft, and the responses that will come from members. You may also have to start thinking about our registration, and the processes involved.
IT Experts: We need advanced means of communication. We need a forum on our website where we can chat, but without non-members having access to the information we release. We need a way fixing an auto responder to ease the trouble of sending mass emails.
Staff: We need at least one permanent staff, a PC and a small office. This way we’ll be able to have someone who we can direct on what to do, from day to day. Whoever that can sponsor this must also know that that doesn’t hand over the movement to him/her. If you are the one, consider it your own sacrifice towards the liberation of Nigeria.
FINAL NOTE:
The twitter activists who led the Egyptian revolution lost the Egyptian elections. Why? They didn’t want a structure. They didn’t want to give their struggle a face. When they eventually did, it was few months to the elections. The Islamic brotherhood which had structures on ground won the elections.
If you do not get to where political decisions are made, how do you change unfavorable political situations?
This mail was sent to seek your views and contributions. Kindly feel free to respond via this address: 20millionfor2015@gmail.com
Thanks for your time.
God bless you, and God bless Nigeria.
Chinedu Ekeke
www.ekekeee.com
Twitter Account: www.twitter.com/@ekekeee
Cc:
www.twitter.com/@topeatiba
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