In a bid to address the myriad challenges facing Nigeria and foster a stronger connection between the government and its citizens, a group, under the aegis of Naija Connect, has announced a groundbreaking 10-day sit out.
Addressing newsmen in Abuja on Friday, the Convener of the group, Iretidola Ojekhoa noted that the sit out, which will be kicking off on Monday is aimed at empowering Nigerians to identify and articulate the pressing issues they encounter daily.
According to her, Nigerians are faced with issues ranging from economic woes and security concerns to inflation, food supply challenges, and high transportation costs due to hike in fuel prices, noting that despite these challenges, there has been a lack of cohesive action and a unified voice among the populace.
“Nigeria is a beautiful country blessed with abundance of wealth – the people, the resources, the diversity of thoughts through multi-ethnic groups speaking over 500 distinct languages
“People in every corner of the world have problems they deal with on a daily basis. What determines the consistency of the problems across the lands is resilience of its people towards finding solutions and a resolve towards a common purpose.
“Nigerians are not satisfied with a lot of things – the economy, security, food supply, inflation, exchange rate, high cost of transportation due to high pump price.Yet, they don’t have a common front to project their voices and concerns.
“There are questions to be answered, such as: What do people want the government to do? How do they envisage solutions to the problems? What will be the people’s role in making the solutions a dream come through? And the likes”
“To answer these questions, it has become pertinent to draw out the people to pour their energies into a constructive nation building project.”
“This project is targeted at building a bridge between the people and government. This will be a platform that acts as a bridge between government and the governed,” Ojekhoa stated.
She added that the initiative is rooted in non-political, non-religious, and non-ethnic principles, embodying the spirit of #NIGERIAforNIGERIANS and aspires to unite progressive and patriotic individuals across the nation for the collective good and advancement of Nigeria.
“The NAIJA CONNECT project and the planned sit-out is non-political, non-religious and caters to NO ethnic persuasion. It is #NIGERIAforNIGERIANS.
The aim is to bring together progressive minds, patriotic Nigerians for the good of our great nation.
“As ‘we no gree for anybody’, we as Nigerians will come together, make our voices heard on solutions to problems that can lead to better nation building,” she said.
Speaking on the popular #Endsar protest, Ojekhoa noted that as good as the initiative was, Nigerian youth could not maximize the opportunity it presented due to lack of preparation, a shortcoming she noted the Naija Connect is determined to address.
Her words: “During #Endsars, there was spontaneous anger in people about certain things. They started with the abolishment of SARS police but after a while, it gravitated to practically everything that happened to Nigerians, and they were crying against it.
“And there was a window of opportunity where the government said, what do they want the government to do? We are ready, just table them. And as at that time, people were not prepared with answers, they could not seize the opportunity because people have not spent time to sit down and think about what it is that they will ask from the government if the government were to ask them this question.
“They could not bring anything forward. So our sit out is to put together thoughts of people’s minds about what exactly we need to do about certain things because government at any time will only try but only with the people that they are able to do what they want to achieve.”
Also speaking on the uniqueness of the initiative, the Head Mobilization, Naija Connect, Queen Zara Oyinye, assured that, whatever idea generated from the sit-out will get to the right channels because most of the time, what happens is that, after all of the advocacy, people find it difficult to take it to where it suppose to get to.
“What makes this project different is that because we are in the game, we are in the channel, and we will be able to know that this is how things ought to have been done and then we will take it to that same place so that action can be taken in some of the resolutions we reach at the end of the project.” Onyinye stated.
