Dr. Usman Bugaje, a two-times Katsina State gubernatorial aspirant has begun plans to mobilize no less than 5 million people from the nineteen (19) Northern states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to ‘salvage’ the region and the country at large.
Dr Bugaje elaborated the idea in a long essay he wrote.
In his write-up, Dr Bugaje argued that “… in the real world, no one gets what he deserves, one only gets what he negotiates for and the currency for that negotiation is power.”
He further explained that “power is not only military or economic, it can also be demographic and in a democracy, demography is a potent source of power.
“So, one way to acquire this demographic power is to harvest the growing discontent and resentment to create a movement across the North that is anchored on change”, he said.
Dr Bugaje therefore suggested that people should be mobilized ahead of 2023 general elections that can negotiate with the political powers that may be to drive the change they want.
“In a population of 200 million where 65% are youth who have no hope for a good future, it is fair to assume that 100 million will be unhappy with their situation. It is also fair to assume that 50 million will be ready to enlist themselves for change once a coterie of credible leaders are assembled to lead it.
“So, one way to acquire this demographic power is to harvest the growing discontent and resentment to create a movement across the North that is anchored on change. In a population of 200 million where 65% are youth who have no hope for a good future, it is fair to assume that 100 million will be unhappy with their situation. It is also fair to assume that 50 million will be ready to enlist themselves for change once a coterie of credible leaders are assembled to lead it.
“It will similarly be fair to say that we can reach and capture the commitment of only 10% of this within the Northern States and Abuja in the span of the next 12 months. This is an average of 250,000 per State, which translates to about 12,500 per local government or 1,250 per ward. Just like we do when starting a new political party, after we would have done the mobilization, we open hard cover books in wards to collect names and contacts of these members,” he said.
“We must quickly add that our ability to mobilize this potent force is contingent on the trust the people have in us, so the faces of this movement must be faces that could be trusted,” he added.
