…at the swipe of an app
“The government blocked the cash app by which the protests were being funded through contributions. The youth instantly switched to cryptocurrency (bitcoin) to sustain their protests”
“For those of you thinking that they would soon run out of money and thus go back to their parents and homes, you are thoroughly mistaken. You probably still live in a cave, because you don’t know how democratic and egalitarian the internet and social media is. These youth are not about to run out of money soon. From what I see, their donations are increasing”
“As you expect them to go back home, there will be no electricity, remember. So, what do you expect them to go back home to do? Underestimate these youth at your own peril”
“These youth have a digital arsenal far more capable than what we have seen”
“This digital generation of protesters, a generation the kind that no country – even in the Western Hemisphere – has ever seen, are like one organized and synchronized unit. A digital army with command and control.”
“…. The ones that are not on the streets protesting are busy organizing, activating, posting and directing on the internet – from the safety of remote locations (including overseas – as I see what my children and their Nigerian friends are doing online) from the convenience of their laptops”
“Between the youth in Nigeria and their counterparts overseas, (even as many of them have never been to Nigeria) space is one dimensional – there is no difference in distance, geography or time. It is scary!”
“I don’t know if they will succeed, because power concedes nothing without a fight, the government will fight back too. I don’t even know if their goals are reachable because I don’t know what those goals are”
“But before I go any further, is it true that some people in government made attempts to bribe the youth to stop the protests? Is it also true that the youth refused the bribes?”
“In different cities, roughians were organized to smash the cars of the youth and to disorganize their protests. The youth have stood their grounds against them and resisted, with the roughnecks beating a retreat”
I hear that a young 21-year old Nigerian-American boy based in Atlanta and in his last year in the university, decided to get involved in the youth protest in Nigeria by raising money. He decided he could bring together 100 young Nigerian-American men and have them donate $100 to the cause. What is amazing? They said within ONE HOUR, the chap met his goal. That is $10,000 folks!!!!!
The Nigerian government should be very worried.
Then I read what someone had written on his page and I post it below. It would seem change is coming and it will come at an alarming pace.
What will happen? Who knows? We may be witnessing the beginning of a revolution like we have never seen before.
MORE THAN A SWIPE OF AN APP…
Please take the agitations of the Nigerian youth very seriously. They are the digital generation. There are between 60 to 90 million of them – and they are organized like a regimented militia. That is the power of social media.
They shun tribe and religion. They simply don’t care and they are not playing. You may have thought they were docile and you may have called them lazy. But they are proving to be among the most resilient, educated, articulate, detribalized, collaborative, digitally savvy, patriotic, artistically talented and most law-abiding generation of Nigerians.
The government and the economy created no jobs for them. But with these protests they have become ‘self-employed’. Their current employment are simply those protests on the streets. They organize on social media as they organize where to meet and when. As they have no jobs to go to; expect to see them on the street tomorrow morning.
The government blocked the cash app by which the protests were being funded through contributions. The youth instantly switched to cryptocurrency (bitcoin) to sustain their protests. The bitcoin transactions are processing more than #1 million an hour, 24 x 7 in small inconsequential donations. The funds are being processed and disbursed to where they’re needed, in real time at the swipe of a mobile app. Add to that the anonymous and private donations in food and drinks. From what we know, no funds have been embezzled or misappropriated. All, at the swipe of an app.
The government then shut the internet down temporarily, the youth responded by converting their individual mobile phones into a private inter network of symbiotic private VPNs – creating a huge internet bandwidth – by bundling together their data. There is no technology on earth that can block that. The only way to do it is to shut down mobile telephone service in the whole of Nigeria – and I don’t even think that is doable and effective in this dispensation of 5G.
Every device from microwave ovens to cars are internet, capable of operating on some sort of infrared spectrum. You can use any of these devices to communicate. So, with those private VPNs, the youth have created, they have been recording and live-streaming their protests to a global audience in real-time. All at the swipe of an app.
The youth are also receiving contributions from their compatriots, ex-schoolmates, friends and relatives overseas (by cryptocurrency), at the swipe of an app. I see what my kids and their friends are doing.
The youth have engaged the services of doctors, ambulances, lawyers, food vendors, auto repair shops, public transportation with the use of monies raised through digital currency and different cash apps. For those of you thinking that they would soon run out of money and thus go back to their parents and homes, you are thoroughly mistaken. You probably still live in a cave, because you don’t know how democratic and egalitarian the internet and social media is. These youth are not about to run out of money soon. From what I see, their donations are increasing. Get on the internet to monitor the ‘chatter’ on the frequencies and sheer volume of these transactions. I have never seen anything like it.
As you expect them to go back home, there will be no electricity, remember. So, what do you expect them to go back home to do? Underestimate these youth at your own peril.
For our elected legislators, let’s not even talk about the Local Government officials, governors, official yes-men, gofers and other appointed officials, particularly those who earn emoluments in the region of #30 million a month, I cannot honestly tell you how all this will end. But …, but …. let me leave it there.
The youth have achieved something without violence and the destruction of property. They have also achieved a landmark without looting. Any person – you do not even need to be a cloud architect: engineer like me – could deduce from internet chatter that a day like this was coming. I saw clues and component pieces of these were all over the internet – and I often thought to myself that – all that was needed now was for the pieces to be coupled into effective modular components.
What I did not know was that as all these were also put in place by the youth, they were only waiting for the time and opportunity to pull the trigger. While the government and the authorities were busy playing Checkers (Droughts); the youth were already playing digital Chess. These youth have a digital arsenal far more capable than what we have seen.
This digital generation of protesters, a generation the kind that no country – even in the Western Hemisphere – has ever seen, are like one organized and synchronized unit. A digital army with command and control. The ones that are not on the streets protesting are busy organizing, activating, posting and directing on the internet – from the safety of remote locations (including overseas – as I see what my children and their Nigerian friends are doing online) from the convenience of their laptops. Between the youth in Nigeria and their counterparts overseas, (even as many of them have never been to Nigeria) space is one dimensional – there is no difference in distance, geography or time. It is scary!
The youth shape the narratives of these protests for a global audience in such a way that the best the government can do is to play catch-up or react. I have come to accept that these youth are the most organized thing that I have seen come out of Nigeria.
I don’t know if they will succeed, because power concedes nothing without a fight, the government will fight back too. I don’t even know if their goals are reachable because I don’t know what those goals are. But before I go any further, is it true that some people in government made attempts to bribe the youth to stop the protests? Is it also true that the youth refused the bribes? In different cities, roughians were organized to smash the cars of the youth and to disorganize their protests. The youth have stood their ground against them and resisted, with the roughnecks beating a retreat.
I also saw video clips of the youth in Port Harcourt – male protesters in the streets stark naked – that is deep. It is not something I thought I would see in my life.
What precisely the youth will do next, and how they will go about it, I do not know. However, a lot is going to depend on how the federal and state governments handle the matter. Ignore them at your own peril.
Whatever the millions of youth protesting do next or how they react to the next move of the government, their response is going to be more than just the swipe of an app.
