Spirit of Nigeria’s Youth, Spur of the Nation: A National Group Mind Activated
The precarious realities of the present Nigerian condition, including and especially widespread insecurity, have precipitated a crisis of confidence in the future of our nation. This is not the first time that the Nigerian people have been confronted with a climate of fear and tension that transcends politicking and opportunism and does not in any way represent what any well-meaning Nigerian would want on record as a part of our history. Along with the reality of police brutality targeted at young Nigerians; rampant kidnapping, ethnic and religious clashes and Boko Haram all represent existing manifestations of an overwhelming reign of terror that characterises Nigeria’s current history. What however sets the current moment apart as an urgent reality of now and the immediate future, is the commonality of purpose that has seen the youth across the entire country come together in order to take an unequivocal and unified stance against insecurity. For Anyiam-Osigwe, this remarkable unity of purpose, realised in a social movement that has transcended Nigeria’s own borders, finally activates a long-awaited National Group Mind.
Anyiam-Osigwe’s conception of this Group Mind is that of a co-operative relation, a form of team spirit that obliges everyone to employ all the resources, attributes and talents at their disposal for the common good. In this process, the Nigerian people are willingly pulling their attributes together through a synergy in which every person is convinced that the collective effort will yield better results than any individual effort. In his treatises, Anyiam-Osigwe postulates that the cultivation of communality in society towards the attainment of a common identity, group personality and collectivism of purpose is sustained by the individuality, strengths and aspirations of members, which in turn preserves and reinforces them. All of these are embodied in the unique community spirit the world is currently witnessing among Nigeria’s youth. The individual hopes and desires of all participants and supporters of this campaign is being actively and relentlessly pursued and realised within the commonweal. Inspired by the spirit of Nigeria’s youth and in advocating that a Group Mind Consciousness serves as a basis for community existence, Anyiam-Osigwe would propose that the present coming together of young people in the context of the EndSARS campaign is about everyone resolving to pool together their various energies and resources through a synergy in which every participant is guided, with the utmost conviction, that their collective vision and interests should and must be realised.
Importantly, the present moment concerns the process through which Nigerians across the country and in the diaspora have been able to achieve a meeting of minds, so that the nation can actually begin to move towards the realisation of a national structure that meets the needs of the country’s citizens and future leaders. It should thus serve as a springboard for every Nigerian who desires the positive advancement of their country, to genuinely strive to move beyond the lingering traumas of Nigeria’s troubled antecedents and work to evolve a new vision. Moving forward, Anyiam-Osigwe would further implore us to strive for a process that guarantees the respective essential interests, in real terms, of all participating individuals within this social movement, in what might rightly be termed as the sum total of the agenda of the nation.
In times of dynamic socio-political change, Anyiam-Osigwe believed that we must strive to converge at the enlightened understanding of a new narrative that enables the synthesis of a new vision of the present history and the immediate future it would yield for the good of all. Thus, for the Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe Foundation, our present focus on the immediate by marking the twenty-second anniversary of Emmanuel Onyechere Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe with an acknowledgement of the current national climate, is informed by a sense of principled pragmatism in the sincere hope that it would catalyse in all concerned a motivation to pay attention to the prospects that our present experiences hold for the future.
Tetsekela Michael Anyiam-Osigwe (Granddaughter)
For Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe Family and Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe Foundation.