For the past two weeks, some highly motivated mostly 20 and 30 something-year old ladies and gentlemen were busy resuscitating my optimism in my country Nigeria which time and nasty policies have devastated. Dateline: Awka, the Anambra state capital, Mgbakwu village in Awka North LGA. Oh, I was the lead instructor, coordinating a team of a highly dedicated lady and four gentlemen on a two week programme planned not just to introduce the 40 trainees to the world of advocacy of the wholesome kind, the sort that would energize them to enable the citizenry to make Nigeria a nourishing field of dreams, and unfurl the sails for those who would also chart new entrances into journalism; print or digital –  or both – why not, if not?

Yes, they were supposed to learn from me but I learnt great lessons, too. As I noted their individual highs and lows, their thought patterns, the kind of questions that agitated their minds, minds just blossoming in this colossal terrain of aridity, infertility and barrenness that has turned Nigeria into the world’s sorriest story, I struggled with how best to approach the task at hand; to help them make lemonades from the rotten lemons Nigeria has thrown at them. For weeks I had been preparing how to invest hope in their very souls, how to talk about Mother Nigeria and be true to the saying that mother is gold.

Oh, perhaps we should visit the beginning of this success story; COPDEM and DDM.  COPDEM stands for Coalition for the Protection of Democracy. Such a coalition should have come on board ages ago to spearhead the drive for a deep-rooted democracy and democratic ideals – principles, standards, morals and ethics. Without such ideals pulsating like oxygen in our blood and enabling our spirit, Nigerian democracy will remain a murky copy of the real thing, an adulterated version.  Now, it is a toxic sort where lives are lost during every election; totally unlike the American version – so peaceful that not only are no lives lost, the police and the military are not called out, the airspace remain open and the entire nation is not placed under lock and key and people’s intercity and interstate movements restricted during election. And the outcome of Nigerian elections deluges the courts, but that is not the case in the United States of America. Actually, the Nigerian election is about Africa’s murkiest.

DDM stands for Diaspora Digital Media, a planned media organization nthat should, one day, change the way Nigerian and African stories are told. How? For instance, it is introducing Buzzbuntu, and anyone who followed the words of the late South African, Archbishop Desmond Mopilo Tutu, who died in 2021 should be used to “Ubuntu” at least. An online medium describes Ubuntu as “part of a set of value systems that originated in Bantu Africa. It emphasizes the interconnectedness of people with their physical and societal worlds. The philosophy is humanistic and pacifistic, and is based on the belief that all people are fundamentally connected”.  Yet, Buzzbuntu is of personal interest to me because we Africans have been fishing in the social media seas – WhatsApp, Instagram, X, Googol, etc, – but none of them sprang from an African mind. Buzzbuntu will change the narrative if… it succeeds. It will be African, yes Nigerian.

Early this year, DDM organized a scholarship award. Over ten thousand Nigerians sat for its written test, and in April, at the Shehu Yar”Adua Memorial Centre, Abuja, the winners were announced and the

monies to cover the scholarship awards were doled out.

Mr. Daniel Elombah, a UK-based Nigerian, is the brain behind COPDEM and DDM, which organized the Awka Journalism workshop gratis for the trainees, including their accommodation and transportation. This workshop will remain the “Awka wonder” for me. The trainees came from 18 different states. Marvelously, 40 total strangers who lived and studied together for two weeks bonded and became friends and brothers and sisters and NIGERIANS …no quarrel broke out, nothing was stolen, no Hausa, Yoruba or Igbo groupings emerged. Their chief concerns were often identical; why Nigeria remained backward. Writing about their experiences while journeying to Awka, they all decried the poor roads and the bribe-taking police agents there. They all had a common anxiety; how to make Nigeria a better place.

My heart will ever cherish the memory the trainees grafted therein. Their unwavering belief in a better Nigeria rose like shafts of sunlight dispersing the darkness, and announced that those who adjudge Nigeria a failure are cretins. They came from an array of backgrounds; head of a Community Bank, a successful real estate lady, who works with a global firm, a Bio-chemistry graduate, a female Pharmacist, a man who was a chef in two highly-rated Abuja-based hospitals but left all to contest the House of Reps elections in Nasarawa state, failed but wants to keep trying until he gets the chance to help rescue Nigeria, fresh graduates squaring up to life, and many others.

One instructor is so versed in web and app designing that he could give the Independent National Electoral Commission fail-proof tool to upload votes online automatically as they trickle in. This will eliminate fraud! Oh, he can meet the individual ICT needs of Nigerian organizations who otherwise fluff away scarce forex to garner such from overseas.  Indeed, he has built web applications for Nigerian and foreign companies. Another is versed in business consultancy, linking farmers to specified markets and hooking up companies with distributors and he has operated as a guide to some international aid agencies in and outside Nigeria.

The attendees have a common name; “Nigerians who want to make a difference”. I saw them at the Awka COPDEM/DDM summit. And I marveled

at their nationalism and zest. .  They appear set to bring about a better Nigeria if we the elders will stop sabotaging their efforts. 

Thank you, COPDEM/DDM for believing in them and in Nigeria.

They have another name: “TOMORROW”