CHARLY BOY: The folly of follow follow activism

By Joseph Edgar…

He went ahead with his planed ‘’follow follow’’ activism and promptly fainted, ending the whole charade in a ridiculous and embarrassing turn. This kind of comical display makes a mockery of objective opposition, thereby weakening our democracy and giving our oppressors free hand to continue with the persistent trampling of our rights.
The idea behind the protest was not robust and lacked ideological leanings. It was very clear that it was just one of those let me ‘do my own’ type of thing aimed at aping the Tuface one which also ended in fiasco.

At least the Tuface own captured the imagination of the nation and even its end which witnessed the cowardly withdrawal of its symbolic leader still kept the whole country debating its intensions, thereby keeping the issues that led to its planning in its first place still on the nation’s burner.

Charly boy had that time jumped mid way into this particular protest, flying in from his Abuja base to lead a band of protesters around the streets of Lagos. This act must have opened his eyes to the possibilities that were embedded in social and political activism viz-a-viz maintaining relevance in the face of a crashed musical career.

My grouse in all these is the fact that with all these tepid attempts at activism and its concurrent failure, the pubic will begin to see these things as a systemic cry for the wolf which never comes and by the time the wolf truly emerges the people would have been too laid back to react, after having been dribbled one time too many.

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Activism not steeped in ideology, like the one we are seeing today, will always flounder making a mockery of true robust opposition to draconian policies. Charly boy and his band of merry makers lack the ideological platform nor the legitimacy to lead an honest and truly people-centred revolt against a perceived anti people regime.

Their main reason for this attempted stand being that the President must resign or resume failed in the eyes of legal scrutiny, failed in its timing especially with pictures of the President receiving governors from all angles, even opposition party, and the recent visit of the highly respected Arch Bishop of Canterbury. It also failed to key into the hunger and deprivation in the land and, thereby, did not resonate across a sections of the population.

This was utterly embarrassing in its planning and execution. Charly Boy at his age should know better than dabble into things like this without being properly schooled on the issues he would be fighting for. I guess it was the shame of it all that must have led to his fainting spell.

Furthermore, the vision of the protest was hollow. Asking for the President to come back or resign did not give any landing or hope to the populace. How would the President taking any of the recommended position bring down inflation which is hovering at 16% and has been predicted to go against the five month fall? How will the resignation of the President solve the power disaster in the economy and how will his resuming solve the issues of the south east and its over ambitious neophyte who has been going around the place fanning the embers of secession as if we do not have enough problems on ground in the country?

Mr Charly Boy and friends decided to just do something and without thinking through, just jumped on the streets to faint rather than stay in the quiet of their homes to play Board games with their grand kids. It is truly humbling when bandana-wearing grand fathers begin to slump all in a bid to get some kind of relevance, jumping on a soft issue as the President coming back to comically distract the people.

Please, the issues we face today are much more serious and we really do not need this band of jokers to make a mimicry of the whole thing with this catastrophic display of tom foolery all in the name of activism.

 

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