A Response to “#30PercentOrNothing”

http://opinionriver.com/30percentornothing/

Be bold for the children of everybody and look well! It will improve our judging tomorrow” – Dan Bearman in Therefore Be Bold (by Herbert Gold)

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible and achieve it, generation after generation”. – Pearl S Buck

I support the 30PercentOrNothing movement and like its logic of participation; if the youth do not get involved in politics as voters and especially candidates they have only themselves to blame. I will rather be wrong than dismiss real and necessary potential if I can identify it or be persuaded to it. I am not naïve enough to believe the movement will succeed in its mission but I am giving it a fair chance of success.

I recently, wrote an article on the movement in Xclusive Magazine http://xclusive.ng/30-percent-or-nothing/ highlighting the possible realities facing the movement with a focus on “organising on the ground” and “doing away completely with the goodwill of gerontocrats”. I even suggested if the movement succeeds its attainment should not be misused or squandered. My article was not welcome by the movement.

Too many politically or entrepreneurially active youths have invested all their hopes on older politicians, godfathers and patrons; the cost of investing all over again on their peers to the same end is something they are utterly keen to avoid. There are also anti-30Percenters. Dilemma! Nevertheless, I can rationally surmise that 30PercentOrNothing may look impossible but impossibility should not be the business of youth whatever their focus. Therefore, I say, Be Bold!

The movement has got the blind side all to itself, a strategic advantage. Revolution may be necessary because piecemeal or radical reform looks very unlikely to attain the goal. Confucius counsels, “On your own day, You are believed” (i.e. not until the day a revolution happens do men believe in it, then they believe). On the “Day of 30PercentAtLeast”, they will be believed, not before.

Confucius also observes that a revolution has a quartet of requirements from times of antiquity. Firstly, it must have a very credible leader the people believe in and trust without any doubt. Secondly, it must answer a pressing need that cannot be met by any other means. Thirdly, it must be free from all ulterior motives, economic, political, social or otherwise. Fourthly, it must be carried out using proper and necessary methods i.e. with clear acumen and appropriate lines of action.

Ulterior motives (which can also corrupt credible leaders) and improper methods (failed organisation) often sabotage revolutions sometimes even before they have started. Real needs are often overripe. Some would already conclude that ulterior motives alone will undo the 30PercentOrNothing movement effortlessly. Others will be comforted that there is no solid organisation on the ground; it is a social media thing. Revolutions are neither easy undertakings nor for the faint-hearted but ripe necessity brings out the best (virtues) in people, somehow.

Finally, for the movement to evolve into a (successful) revolution as some of its principals affirm, they have to get into some serious action. If they already have, they can ignore the previous sentence.

Grimot Nane

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