How many would-be start-up founders have we wasted SARS-style? Think about that for a moment. Does it not bring to mind Alan Paton’s powerful title, “Cry, the Beloved Country” – except for the fact that we need more than tears at this instant, we need to end SARS now for future Paystack founders to live.
On Thursday, October 15, a friend of mine shared great news in a group we both belong to “about a Nigerian start-up – by young men who don’t fit our ‘traditional mode’ of how anyone should look – twists in their hair and probably carrying multiple laptops at a time – all indications of criminal activity according to our Nigerian police.” And then like the sharp mind that she is, wondered “how many Paystack founders we’ve ‘wasted’” SARS-style. SARS is the acronym for Special Anti-Robbery Squad.
All technologies are Greek to me, but I do understand that this Paystack deal, when expressed in naira and kobo, is a mind bugling N76 billion worth of brainpower in the heads of just two of endangered youths walking the unsafe streets of Lagos and other Nigerian cities, one dangerous day after another.
Think of it this way: Among many of our young men and women who may not fit our ‘traditional mode’ of dress or hairstyle, are razor-sharp creatives like the founders of Paystack and their team. This incredible pair, Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi have made more money in that one transaction than the internally generated revenue of all of Nigeria’s 36 states, other than Rivers and Lagos.
Yet, those who only dip crooked fingers into our national treasury to become overnight billionaires show little appreciation or respect for these brilliant young Nigerians who stand good and ready to produce clean millions in any currency from hard work and imagination. Our young people are the future of this country, our only hope to compete in the knowledge economy of the contemporary globalised world.
Given the potential of our young people to make us competitive in the modern-day knowledge-driven creation of wealth, Nigeria should stand strong against any institution like SARS that threatens their lives and freedom to create.
The federal and state governments must realise that the wealth in their heads is a billion times more vast than all the oil in Nigeria’s oil fields, and all the gold in Zamfara’s gold mines. One quick way to show this appreciation is to end SARS now.
The situation confronting our youth, from unemployment to ASUU strikes, did not start with this administration. But the time has come to face the problems sincerely.
The legislature too should have the good sense to lend its considerable voice to cheer the president on in favour of ending SARS now because the lives of our children should not be negotiable. What our legislators must also do is to support the president to do the right thing – increase investment in human development, especially, in health and education, and encourage the governors to do the same in their states.
The situation confronting our youth, from unemployment to ASUU strikes, did not start with this administration. But the time has come to face the problems sincerely. The concern for their welfare must go beyond perfunctory expressions of concern by some legislators that have very little development thinking behind it. One glaring example of this is the 2008 ‘Indecent Dressing’ bill once sponsored by Senator Eme Ufot Ekaette, who then chaired the Senate’s Committee on Women and Youth. I recall railing against that travesty in my Business Day column at the time.
Creative people do not need a fashion police or any kind of conformist chain to thrive. As the brilliant Jewish philosopher, Baruch Spinoza, once observed, a man was never the better for having a fine gown because it is irrational to wrap up things of little value with expensive cover. But then, in our country of crass conspicuous consumption, ‘ridiculous’ doesn’t raise an eyebrow.
Indeed, nothing seems to shock anymore in Nigeria. Nothing seems to make us give serious attention to our increasingly divided and declining country. Not nepotism and rising disunity, not outrageous levels of high corruption that is rarely prosecuted and juxtaposed with extreme poverty, and not the greater than ever cynicism and the hopelessness of millions of our jobless but educated and intelligent youths.
Many of our elites who are in a position to set Nigeria straight have traded their sense of fairness, justice, and patriotism for a comfortable passivity and a jaded approach towards bias and prejudice in the system.
Only the #EndSARS movement has made some of our elites – previously inured to impunity, corruption, injustice, and unfairness – sit up and take notice of our national de-sensitisation to the receding rule of law that allows Nigeria’s young people to be slaughtered with impunity, and a creeping democratic collapse that can eradicate their freedom to create.
Many of our elites who are in a position to set Nigeria straight have traded their sense of fairness, justice, and patriotism for a comfortable passivity and a jaded approach towards bias and prejudice in the system.
So far, here is the summary of the problems of young people in Nigeria: Unemployment, education that is frequently interrupted by strikes that the government has been unable to negotiate away, poverty, corruption, insecurity, and other ills of bad governance. But despite all of these, Nigeria’s youth were able to organise one of the most disciplined and ordered protests against police brutality, and two Nigerian young men were able to build a world-class start-up worth $200 million or more.
So, we return to the question: How many would-be start-up founders have we wasted SARS-style? Think about that for a moment. Does it not bring to mind Alan Paton’s powerful title, Cry, the Beloved Country – except for the fact that we need more than tears at this instant, we need to end SARS now for future Paystack founders to live.
Ebere Onwudiwe is a distinguished fellow at the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), Abuja. Please send your comments to this number on WhatsApp: +234 (0)701 625 8025; messages only, no calls.
