Why We Need To Get Involved

Most educated and privileged people in Nigeria will agree that while they have achieved varying level of success and growth in their families, careers and businesses over the years, the same success has not been replicated in the country as a whole. 

The biggest contributing factor to this declining quality of life for most Nigerians according to most analysts is the lack of POLITICAL WILL. The inability of political leaders and actors to drive the initiatives required to provide positive governance outcomes for all Nigerians. 

This political will, however, comes from an interplay of forces - the “demand for politics” - the capacity and actions of the voters and the supply of politics - the capacity and actions of the politicians and political parties. 

On the demand side, the twin factors of low voter turn-out (especially among the educated middle class and youth) and poor quality of decision-making (based on monetary inducements; form over substance; ethnic/religious biases) stifle the quality of voting choices by our electorate. 

The prevalence of god-fatherism, money politics and the merchants of political violence create a supply side that ultimately ensures the absence of good governance in society. 

At the intersection of these two forces is a high degree of apathy of the educated middle class and the youth segment of voters who hardly participate in elections. Participation on the demand side is left to mostly the impoverished and down-trodden in society, while on the supply side, it is left to “professional Politicians” who lack the pedigree, privileged exposure, character and capacity to lead beyond the way they have always done things in politics and government in Nigeria. 

The results - a failure of democracy in Nigeria and an increasing propensity to embrace the alternative - anarchy, militarism or a failed state. 

To prevent this drift towards the unwelcome alternative, a concerted effort is required to improve this political equation by educating and encouraging a new breed of forward-thinking Nigerians especially from the educated middle class and the youth segment to get involved in both the demand side (as voters) and the supply side (as politicians and members of political parties). 

This is the premise upon which our work at #LetsGetInvolved is built - that by educating our people to participate more meaningfully in political activities we can improve the quantum and quality of political participation that will translate to a stronger and more potent POLITICAL WILL that will in turn, deliver good governance outcomes. 

We are a NON-PARTISAN program. We are not against Government or any political party or group of politicians. We are simply against APATHY - the SIN of OMISSION and a deadly sin at that. 

#LetsGetInvolved