Here are my questions and suggestions:

1. Can the Political Scientists and the Lawyers amongst us enlighten us on the constitutional devices by which the National Assembly can pressure the Executive or Judiciary into taking a particular course of action?

2. Based on our practical options and the decision criterion of ‘what is immediately actionable’, can we can draft a 1-paged, straightforward and measurable demand which we would press on the National Assembly to be pressed, in turn by the Legislature, on the Executive or the Judiciary?

3. We can decide on what consecutive number of days on which to Occupy the offices of the National Assembly members, both their offices in Abuja and all the ones in their constituencies simultaneously.

4. The Occupiers would not only turn out in large numbers, but as many people as possible would have had the same 1-paged demand sent to their emails, which they would print out and hand in at the Legislators’ offices.

5. The Occupation can continue for as long as is practical either continuously or continually or in any mix of both that is effective until the demand is met.

6. The Occupiers, in large numbers, would occupy court proceedings.

7. This can be repeated with as many issues over the next 6 months: Ringim & Boko Haram, PIB & the Cabal etc.

The process, which I think is easily learned, should however be designed to allow the most popular and pressing demands to bubble to the top through an inclusive, bottom-up mechanism. Say, voting on some sensibly framed options through emails, SMS on some central platform(s) in a transparent manner. The inclusion works both ways as it then makes it easier to mobilize Occupiers through the same email addresses and SMS.

I am more than convinced we’d receive other, better strategies and I watch eagerly to see what would emerge.

However, it seems there is a genuine need for some young people to recalibrate the temporal dimension of their expectations, and to understand that unison is not the only way in which harmony can be expressed. To use one well worn example, that movement that formed around the nucleus of 12 apostles was not without its complexities, contradictions and divergences. How then can we expect less complexity and dissent of a movement of millions of young people, many who have not even spent any significant period of time together prior to the events of the recent past?

But even if there is a falling away, it’s only until the next wave. This movement will be characterized by cycles, crests and troughs. It may be useful to adjust expectations to anticipate such a pattern. Again, much of the gains we have made in last few days will only begin to become clear in April of this year. I expect some to be brought home to me by my own children. Some insights will only appear to me on my death bed and will, unfortunately, go with me into my grave.

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I think it’s best to give an idea of where I’m coming from.

I began my active engagement with the immediate issues a bit earlier than most of the people I know personally.

My expectations were, should I say, relatively moderate, not in the grand objectives but in terms of time frames and the outcomes I thought I would see.

To put it differently, I thought it would be a marathon, not a sprint, I hope you see what I mean.

Again, my terms of engagement evolved to become largely intellectual (research, analyze, enlighten, did some propaganda along the way) based on the interactions of my natural inclinations and the great people I’m surrounded with and the situation of my life at present.

I have embraced the emergent roles presented to me and to the extent that I could do a little more than make intellectual contributions, I have been able to make financial contributions.

Altogether, I continue today to do what I’ve been doing since October or thereabouts. Actually, to be truthful, I have gained more momentum.

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I’m not disappointed. I am not by any definition of the word underwhelmed. Actually, more opportunities exist now than ever before. My network has widened and I am meeting more young people every day who are committed and most inspiring in the nature of their commitment and mental, spiritual and practical tenacity.

Now, I want to point out that many of the young people I have met in the past few days are Opportunists.

Yes. From the beginning their eyes were set on Corruption and Governance, but they sensed the opportunity that the removal of the petrol subsidy presented and they took it.

I do not remember that the ‘If I die, I die’ lady, who now seems to have become some sort of poster child for the movement, brought up, even once, the issue of the subsidy during her fifteen seconds of fame, and it was not once that I heard the suggestions, ‘Occupy by day, rewrite the constitution by night’ or ‘Occupy by day, rewrite the budget by night.’ One can even do a sampling of the placards, to see what sort of messages were on them, whether they were largely focused on the Petrol Subsidy or went beyond that. In fact, a lot of the rhetoric soon converged on Government’s ineptitude and waste. And the refrain of even the most ‘jaded’ subsidy ‘profiteers’ was: fix the refineries!

From the outset most of the young people I knew and others that I have now come to know were vociferous in their distrust of Organized Labour, and few can genuinely say they didn’t expect Organized Labour to agree to some sort of compromise with Government. Yet, that didn’t stop the young people from riding the bandwagon of Organized Labour for what it was worth.

Actually, some of the more seasoned activists among the youth leaders that I met opined that since a large number of the young Nigerians would be participating in activities of this kind for the first time, it was even more necessary for the youth movement to serve a period of apprenticeship under Organized Labour, to learn the dynamics of civil disobedience.

Of course, most of the critics of the movement have confused the means and the end. And even then, some of the criticism is justified even though the opportunism may not have been conscious, inordinately or vilely intended, it still is what it is, and the criticism is more than welcome.

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Now, I should also point out some reason why it would seem as if a marriage with Organized Labour was decreed in the heavens. Permit me to quote Toni Morrison, ‘And fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely licensed; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good but well-behaved. We courted death in order to call ourselves brave, and hid like thieves from life.’ The quote is not a prescient, universal form of the criticism that I have spoken of above. Rather, I think it’s a lens through which we can appraise the developments of the past few weeks.

Probably everyone understands how the strikes hurt Government. It is not clear that 1 million young people with placards, on the streets of Ibadan would translate into the same thing as PENGASSAN shutting down the upstream production of petroleum in Nigeria. This may help to highlight the difference between ‘aggression’ and ‘strength.’

Now that we have established that we have aggression to spare we need to identify the strengths, where and how we can really hurt bad Government. Once we can identify those, we’d bring on the aggression again and ‘full speed ahead,’ we’d immediately begin to see our engine pulling away from the coach of Organized Labour and the failures of an older generation of Nigerians.

Or, to put it differently, what we need is to agree on another issue, like the petrol subsidy removal, around which an initial critical mass can develop so as to gain more momentum, which would be better directed this time, based on the lessons we are learning from the last round.

We can find such issues ready to hand if we look. To be sure, some pressure has been built up within the conduits of power and we can expect this Government to attempt to activate a safety valve by sacking some members of the present administration without prosecuting them in any meaningful way.

But what we need is to make a real scapegoat and begin to put deterrents in place. What I have in mind may serve us in demanding accountability from the administrators of the Petroleum Industry, as regards the Corruption under the old subsidy regime or even the administrators of the Security services as regards the manner in which the Boko Haram issues have been handled.