AdminIt was March 2010 and my friend, Bisola Edun, invited me to a protest in Abuja. It sounded like fun and I agreed to go with her. I had just finished my MBA at Oxford University, came back to Nigeria, and was completing my NYSC service year with a friend’s company that was doing some work on the upcoming 2011 elections.
The March 16, 2010 historic EiE protest in Abuja happened, followed by the protest to then Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, on April 13th. The name ‘Enough is Enough’ was one of the slogans of the Tunde Bakare-led Save Nigeria Group (SNG) protests of January 2010. Interestingly, their first protest in Abuja was on my birthday – January 12th! Pastor Tunde is a contributing author.
After the two protests, the coordinators and participants continued to meet to discuss what next – I had time to engage so I became the de facto secretariat. The general sense was that we really couldn’t protest every time we are upset and expect things to shift. We then decided to focus on getting young people to channel their energy into participating in the electoral process – Register to vote | Select credible candidates | Vote and Protect their votes. #RSVP has gone on to be Nigeria’s longest-running get-out-the-vote campaign.
We opened an office in January 2011 with funding from Omidyar Network and the MacArthur Foundation. We hired a Program Manager who resigned in February. Elections were in April and because I had spent the most time on the EiE Project, I agreed to oversee our activities through elections and we would then hire a new Program Manager. 11 years later, I’m still here!
EiE’s story has become a reflection of my journey with Nigeria. I was born and raised in Ife. I grew up believing that anything was possible. Ife had two things – the university and the Ooni’s palace. Nevertheless, as campus kids, we believed we could do and become anything we wanted. University of Ife campus kids of a certain period is a veritable list of who is who in different sectors across Nigeria today. I grew up believing in Nigeria. My father was a professor of public administration so politics and governance were everyday conversations. My mother had an interesting life path – nurse, psychologist, counsellor, social worker. They both believed 2 much in Nigeria and Nigerians. My father went abroad for many years but was always clear that he would retire and move back to Nigeria. Two of his closest friends still live outside the country. My mother moved back to Nigeria to set up an old people’s home, clearly seeing the demand that we now have 20 years later. Sadly, she was murdered in a car-jacking.
Is enough not yet enough?
I believe in Nigeria and Nigerians and I’ve spent the last 11 years telling Nigerians that we deserve better and we can do better. Have we made an impact – certainly! That’s why the theme of our 10th anniversary was #OnePerson – the simple idea that one person can and does make a difference; amplifying many examples to reinforce that narrative. Has the impact been enough – no. But it’s a journey.
Is enough not yet enough?
When I started leading EiE, I was clear that our primary audience would be Nigeria’s educated elite. My thinking was that it would be easy to get us to act in our enlightened self-interest. We have the most to lose – our businesses, our homes, our assets in its many different forms. We are the ones who will go to great lengths to ensure our children get into the right schools. I can’t send my children to any of the schools I went to, regardless of how excited I am about them. But we don’t seem to want to make the difficult decisions to get us to where we want to be.
Is enough not yet enough?
No matter how wealthy we get, no matter the assets we acquire, a heart attack on 3rd Mainland Bridge will kill you as no one will be able to get to you and even if they do, our medical facilities are sub-optimal. Afolabi Mabogunje was murdered while cycling last year; Olaolu Mudashiru was killed yesterday in a hit-and run while cycling. We might never find the killer. A few people called to express their regrets for not being able to attend because of his death. A well-known hospital on this Lagos Island has been accused of medical negligence on several occasions but no one has been brave enough to sue. This is our reality.
Is enough not yet enough?
From elections in 2011, we went to the National Assembly in 2013 and finally got them to break down their budget under Senate President Bukola Saraki in 2017 for the first time. Unfortunately, they have not done it since then as they couldn’t handle the scrutiny. We keep saying #OpenNASS because how can the arm of government that passes the country’s budget and has oversight over how the executive arm spends money not make their own expenditure public?
Is enough not yet enough?
It has been a rough road leading an organisation that wasn’t planned and in some ways didn’t have “owners”. The founding members allowed me to run with it and figure things out as they led their own organisations. While I was grateful for the vote of confidence, it was also a very lonely journey as I didn’t know what I was doing half the time. It was very fluid and I kind of got stuck trying to make sense of the organisation; trying to give it life and figure out what to do as initial advocates focused on entrepreneurship or joined partisan politics. I didn’t expect to be here this long but for our 5th anniversary when we hit on the “Office of the Citizen”, I knew I had found something I could run with to teach citizens that they have power to demand their rights and better governance outcomes.
I heard the phrase at a function from aunty Oby – Oby Ezekwesili, one of the contributors to the book. EiE then became a platform where I could use my voice and talk about the Nigeria that I wanted to leave for my children. I went from being stuck on what to do, to execution. We realised that the shift that we want to see, either from the perspective of elections or from the perspective of citizens’ engagement had to come from citizens who understand their rights and responsibility. We assume that people understand what a democracy is but you can’t understand what is not taught and we don’t teach about democracy. One thing I stumbled upon recently is that we haven’t quite aligned the concept of democracy within our cultural context. In Yoruba, government translates to “ijoba” – the king’s domain. How do you tell people they have rights and agency in one vein and then tell them that the framework for their lives is determined by a king who is not questioned and passes on power generationally? There’s a lot of work to be done in that area.
This became our 3rd core program.
We have other projects like Missing in NG where we track missing people in Nigeria – an offshoot of the Bring Back Our Girls campaign. We had advocated for a Missing Persons Register for Nigeria after the Chibok abduction, but in 2019, Femi Falana suggested that we take it up as civil society because the government would be too embarrassed to document the number of people that are missing.
While these projects continue, we are excited to unveil a new addition to our programs this evening. It’s a WhatsApp Bot that engages citizens in an automated fashion with information on registration, PVC Collection, Debates, contact information on elected officials and other channels to take action in partnership with Global Citizen. I won the Global Citizen Award earlier this year, so this is a special partnership. Save the number 017006381; send “Hello” as a message and start engaging!
Through it all, it has been a privilege to lead an incredible team of young Nigerians who have sacrificed greatly for this country over the last 12 years.
To the past employees represented by ‘Debisi Alokolaro and Adeoluwa Adebayo – thank you.
The current team – Seyi, Chidinma, Victor, Ifeoluwa, David, Seun, Bati, Emmanuel, Phillips, Donatus & Waheed. Thank you very much!
History will be kind to us; of that, I am sure.
We are grateful to Bruce Onabrakpeya, Victor Ehikamenor, Kingsley Ayogu, Deola Sagoe, Lisa Folawiyo, Kelechi Amadi-Obi, TY Bello and Emmanuel Oyeleke for donating their work and services for a good cause. A special mention to Kelechi who has done this every year we have had an auction. Thank you!
A big thank you to Dr Christopher Kolade, who not only made the time to write our foreword despite health challenges, but particularly for his unwavering belief in Nigeria and that it’s worth fighting for!
As I close, those of us in this room are Nigeria’s educated elite and Nigeria is where it is because of actions we have taken and actions we have refused to take. My challenge to you this evening is to ask, Is enough not yet enough? And if it is, what are you doing about it? Let your money speak for you; let you network speak for you; let your talent and skills speak for you in how you decide to deploy them, but you must determine that if enough is truly enough, it’s not just about saying so, it’s about taking action!
God bless you and God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria!
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