We should not come on social
media to abuse one another on partisan grounds. That to me is an abuse of the
platform.
Months after the 2015 elections ended, Nigerian youths
are still hung up on those elections. Nowhere is this more obvious than on
social media which our youths have turned to a battle ground divided into pro
People Democratic Party (PDP) and pro All Progressives Congress (APC) youths.
So ingrained is this animosity that each group targets elected officials and
party chieftains of the opposing parties and go after them just on the basis of
their party affiliation.
Things reached a comical stage when a youth attacked
me for a tweet on Twitter and hours later was praising a popular youth for his
tweet. Unbeknownst to him was the fact that the youth had merely tweeted my
exact words but had not credited me with the quote!
These shenanigans makes me concerned for our youth. Where
they should be getting closer and breaking down barriers, they are holding a
candle for politicians who in reality are not as divided as they lead these
youths to believe.
For instance, Senator Bukola Saraki is the Senate
President and Chairman of the National Assembly today. He could not have been
elevated to that exalted seat were it not for the votes of senators of the PDP.
What does that teach us? It teaches us that all politicians are divided by a
common interest which united them when the conditions are right and temporarily
divides them when they are wrong.
I advise youths not to look at Nigeria from a pro PDP or
APC perspective. They should see the country from a pro youth outlook. Their
future is greater than a party. Nigerian youths should not believe and act as
if the only options available to them are either the PDP or the APC. There is a
third alternative.
This third alternative is patriotism.
I am reminded of the wise words of Mark Twain who defined
patriotism as “loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it
deserves it”. Our youths have to imbibe this wisdom from Mark Twain and refrain
from saying and tweeting nasty stuff about each other and their religions,
regions, tribes and ethnicities.
Those who engage in this do not understand that
foreigners follow Twitter trends and when our youths are disrespecting each
other’s ethnicities and religions, they must realise that foreigners do not see
us as Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo. They just see us as Nigerians. I therefore advise
our youths and indeed all Nigerians to speak of Nigeria in a way that shows the
world that we value her. If we put a small price on Nigeria, we should be rest
assured that the world will not raise that price.
We should not come on social media to abuse one another on partisan grounds. That to me is an abuse of the platform.
I am sure Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone and Evan
Williams, who founded Twitter, did not found it as a platform where we come to
outdo each other in raining insults on those on the opposite political divide
from us. Speaking for myself, I am on Twitter to release my ideas for scrutiny and
receive ideas of other Twitter users for contemplation, because none of us is
as smart as all of us.
Our youths need to understand that we are living in an
idea age not an insult age. It takes interdependence and interconnection to
create the atmosphere that inspires brilliant ideas. Our youths are short
circuiting this interconnection when they alienate each other.
And I am aghast as to what to say to those elders who
come on Twitter and fan the embers of division amongst our youths by retweeting
them when they retweet insults and destructive criticism against their
political opponents.
Even worse is when they praise them by calling them
intelligent for engaging in this behaviour.
We really need to watch it. Nigerian youths are beginning
to define intelligence as the ability to come up with the most sophisticated
insult and criticism. We urgently need to redefine intelligence in Nigeria.
Mudslinging, cynicism and criticism are not acts of intelligence. Ideas and
creativity are. If you are truly intelligent, you won’t be on Twitter lobbing
insults on political opponents. Instead you will be tweeting ideas that inspire
solutions to Nigeria’s challenges!
I want to urge these elders, who I have come to be aware
are called Twitter overlords, to remember that true elders plant trees of peace
even though they know they may never benefit from the shades of those trees.
President Barack Obama, Senator Hillary Clinton and
former President Bill Clinton are some of the most criticised political figures
in the world, but they do not use social media to react to the criticism they
receive.
Instead, conscious of the fact that their role is to set good moral
standards for the youths, they constantly tweet uplifting and inspiring tweets
which have the capacity to unite people. That is what we should do as elders in
Nigeria. If we do not do this, we should consider that a time may come when
those attack dogs have savaged all our enemies, and having nothing else to
savage they may turn on us.
This is Ben Murray Bruce and I just want to make common
sense.
——————
Senator Murray-Bruce is the
senator representing Bayelsa East in the Senate
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