By Comr Amos Kalu

There is an Igbo parable that defined these three terms and the havoc they have caused to Nigerians in simpler ways. It was believed that cocoayam yam killed a certain family probably because they were not supposed to eat cocoayam yam according to some taboo of their land. This family notwithstanding ate cocoayam and it led to the dead of the couple.

When their child who was younger grew up and was seen with cocoayam despite being warned about what killed his parents, the elders in their intellectual way of using parables asked the child:

“What killed your father?” the child replied that it was “Cocoayam”.

“What killed your mother?, he also affirmed it was casava. They dropped the third poser.

“What do you have in your hands?”, the child replied it was “Cocoayam”.

“My son, are you desirous of life at all?”, was the last question that made the child to reconsider his plans to eat cocoayam.

This parable exemplifies the blow Nigerians have been dealt with over the cankerworm of Religion, Tribalism and Ethnicity, the dangerous tools the older politicians have used to keep the youths in subjugation and perpetual intellectual conundrum while holding unto power on their behalf.

Howbeit, this tool that has continued to work for the politicians only end after the election when they settled down for it and forget their Trojan horses to power. Ethnicity, Religiosity and Tribalism do not exist while they’re looting the national treasury and plundering on our collective patrimony.

When they make bad policies that take food away from our tables or put our kids out of school, the suffering is collective and does not discriminate against Christians, Muslims, Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba, it does not separate educated from the poor, only the powerful and privileged politicians are spared because the money they loot does not discriminate or desperate them as Muslims, Christians, Pagans, Traditionalists, etc. it does not consider their state of origin or tribe. They are one United entity against the brainwashed masses who keep playing the pun.

The question here is “Do we allow the same cocoayam that killed our parents to kill us?”

The answer is not far fetched, there is a time in the history of a people when their inert consciousness must take over to propel them towards self emancipation and freedom from institutionalized corruption and diversity manipulation.

National Youth Alliance is a gathering of aggrieved youths from all political parties, religion, tribe, and creed whom the scales of oppression has fallen out of their eyes and they believe in the unifying personality of the young and energetic Ambassador Aliyu Bin Abbas who has taken it upon himself to lead the revolutionary movement for self emancipation among the youths to break the shackle of Tribalism, Ethnicity, and Religiosity in Nigeria political sphere to give the youths better opportunity of participating in decisions that will shape their future.

The truth remains that coming from any part of Nigeria or following a particular faith does not make any Nigerian better than the next because we buy from the same market and feel the same pains when we usher in bad leadership no matter the tribe or religion.

…to be continued.