 On behalf of the U.S. Institute of Peace, I would like to welcome everyone to this conversation on safeguarding democracy in West Africa, transforming peaceful protests into platforms for democratic change. My name is Ogeana Borgo, and I am the director of the West Africa program at USIP. Over the last year, sweeping protest movements have emerged in different countries across West Africa, bringing together large constituencies, especially young people, to voice their deep grievances with their governments. Yet, these movements have struggled to translate their protest demands into democratic gains. What is driving this recent upsurge in youth-led protests in West Africa? And how can this newfound youth agency be proactively engaged to strengthen democratic and peace-building processes across the region? We will be exploring these questions and more in our conversation today. We are delighted to be co-hosting this event with a national endowment for democracy, the NED. The NED is also home of the Reagan-Fosell Democracy Fellows program, which is an international exchange program funded by the U.S. Congress, through which some of the world's most dedicated democracy activists and scholars conduct independent research and outreach projects. We are honored to have two Reagan-Fosell Democracy Fellows on the panel with us today. For our audience, I encourage you to follow the conversation using the hashtag West Africa Democracy. It is now my pleasure to welcome Miss Obyanojou Catherine Uday, also known as DJ Switch. DJ Switch is an award-winning Nigerian artist and activist. Last year, she joined and galvanized one of Nigeria's largest protest movements against police brutality. Her live coverage of the government crackdown on peaceful protesters ignited the truth and expressed the strength of a new generation of Nigerian youth. Performing her original spoken word piece, please welcome DJ Switch. The leaders of tomorrow. A common phrase. In me, there is a common face. Discontentment, pain and suffering mixed in a local cocktail of pride and puffery. This is commonplace. The leaders of tomorrow. A common phrase. Ambition and greed help me. I need to feed. How else will I reach where I need to be? This is common sense. The leaders of tomorrow. A common phrase. In me, there is a common space. Where my young is unborn and my unborn is he or she that would bring me to my knees. This is a normal case. The leaders of tomorrow. A common phrase. In me, is a tunnel filled with the darkness the light cannot seem to crack. A tunnel that never seems to break. Oh, how I yearn for the light. For the right to do with me, what I choose to do with me, yet you refuse to leave me be. And now, my leaders of tomorrow. Are off to a safer place. Thank you so much, DJ Switch. Before I bring in our other panelists, DJ Switch, what was your inspiration behind that piece? Thank you so much, Ogey. Thank you for having me and good morning to you all. There is a consistency I've seen across the African continent. Despite its riches in every regard, Africa is considered the poorest continent on Earth. And we owe this rank into most of our past leaders of tomorrow and our present leaders of tomorrow. This is not up for debate, as is evident in both the struggling try to get away in search for greener pastures. And those in power who send their children to places, they also consider to be greener pastures to quickly explain the end of that piece, which I titled, Africa Speaking. Africa Speaking takes the tone of a mother, a mother in pain. A mother, in this case, is Africa, the continent with the richest concentration of natural resources in the world. But other continents have done much more with far less. Africa, she cries as her youngest unborn, meaning ideas, prospects, development, education, the beauty of religious and religious, the beauty of religious and ethnic diversities, innovation, technology, people, and many more are underutilized or killed off daily. And those yet to be born, seemingly will already destroy the continent further. There seems to be no blueprint for success in Africa. And this is what I meant when I said, in a dark tunnel, the lights cannot seem to crack. And for those who dare to do what is right, have either been silenced in one way or the other. I cannot force anyone who has the power to etch their names in history as those who would take the continent to its full potential. But I can say that history will certainly remember you did not. And so that's basically where I was coming from when I wrote that piece. Thank you so much, DJ Switch. And I think we will explore some of the themes that you raised further as we go through the conversation today. So I wanna go ahead and bring in our other panelists to this conversation. We have a rich array of panelists today. So Ms. Sanamikoja is an award-winning Nigerian investigative journalist. And she's also a Reagan Fassell Democracy Fellow at the NED. And she joins us today from Nigeria. Ms. Farida Naborema is a Togolese Human Rights activist and writer. And she's also a Jenin's Randolph Senior Research Fellow here at USIP. Mr. Ibrahim Adialo is the Head of Operations for the National Front for the Defense of the Ghinian Constitution. And he joins us today from Guinea-Conakry. Also welcoming Dr. Zacharia Mampili, who is the Maxendow Chair of International Affairs at the School of Public and International Affairs at the City University of New York. And rounding it up with my colleague, Dr. Jonathan Pinkney, who is a Senior Researcher with our Non-Violence Action Program here at USIP. Thank you all for joining us today. So I'm gonna dive right into the conversation. And I will call on Senami Ibrahim and Farida. This question I will pose to the three of you and we will start with Senami. Going from the piece by DJ Switch, we've seen many protest struggles across the continent. And a lot of these movements have struggled to turn their short-term mobilization into long-term change. What are the main pressures or challenges in your context that you think make it harder for movements to sustain themselves beyond that time, that moment of mobilization? I'm gonna start with Senami. Thank you so much again. Hi, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here and be a part of this conversation. On October 20, 2020, I had taken an Uber from my house in Lagos to my destination, which was the Lagos State House of Assembly, where it was a site of the Antares protest that was happening. And I had been going for a few days to report on it like I had done every other day before that. And on this particular day, there was traffic congestion on the road. And the Uber driver of the car that I was in started to complain about how the people who were protesting are terrible people and how they were disrupting businesses and people's sources of livelihood. As if SARS was not the normal thing. His statements took me aback because, one, he was an Uber driver. The second was that he was a man. And I say this because these are the two groups of people who, at the time of the protest, were disproportionately affected by the brutality that was being meted out on Nigerians by the Special Anterobri Squad unit, SARS, who strived on profiling young men, drivers, arresting them, obiturally, extorting them and even killing them. Why was he so bitter about this demonstration? I'd say if successful, we're not going to guarantee his right to life. And then he hit me, right? This man, like many others who were against the protest at the time, or were even used by the government of the day to towards the protest, are victims of a field system. One that didn't guarantee them a right to life. One that didn't guarantee them the right to healthcare. And one that didn't guarantee them the right to education, fair hearing, or any form of human dignity. Nigeria is the poverty capital of the world, like DJ Switch said. It has 98.6 million people living in extreme poverty. That's living on less than a dollar a day. And about 70 million of it, 211 million population are of working age, but are out of work. And that's man, it don't mean that in that moment, was trying, merely trying to survive. And any other thing tried or seemed like he was disrupting his day-to-day activities or his right to survive, was considered by him as unnecessary and even provocative. I think it's a similar situation all around West Africa. And this poverty is intentionally weaponized in moments of great change. This is why autoritarians can mobilize counter protesters and pay them 500 Naira, which is equivalent of about a dollar to disrupt peaceful protests. It's also why pseudo civil societies are springing up all over the sub-regions who register as civil society organizations and groups, but issue press releases and organize all this rallies in favor of the oppressors. And it is quite clear by the activities that they have, they are having a handshake with the oppressive ruling class. In Nigeria, I think another tool that is used to oppress people is ethnicity and religion. This is because it plays an important role in sustaining the gains of mobilization that usually happens during mass movement. And the Nigerian authorities know this, autoritarians around the sub-region know this, and so they recognize it to divide and rule when it is political convenience, just like the British did when they had a colonial presence in the sub-region. I think the Niger, for example, to the northern part of the country has the highest rate of poverty. There's a Boko Haram insurgency that is festering and moving gradually to other parts of the country. It also has the highest number of children that are out of school. Yet, when protests are happening in most parts of the country, and even in some areas in the North, the large and northern population, the thing that this protest is mobilized to unseat their brother, President Mohamed Buhari, for instance, who is from Katina states and from the northern part of the country. The president echoed this, and it was intentional, because he was speaking to his base as well. When he addressed Nigerians in the aftermath of the Laki protests, then he said that the protest that was organized by young Nigerians against police brutality was an attempt to unseat him. I believe that the solution to all of this first is education. When people know, when all people know all their lives is oppression, they'll internalize it, they'll defend your oppressors because they've never experienced a different reality. And so even when you suggest it, it seems impossible or even like an attack on the existing order. I think that international partners who are working with Nigeria and civil society organizations and the media in Nigeria and West Africa, and who are excited about youth-led movements and want to ensure that its system was investing education, intentional campaigns that are directed at those who have some sort of access to education, and even those who have been so wickedly deprived of this education by the leaders that they call brothers. I think that when people understand these issues beyond ethnicity, religion, or where the next meal will come from, then these movements can shift, then it can begin to take roots in the grassroots and become formidable groups that are key for police court change. Thank you so much, Senami, for those opening thoughts. I know we will explore them even further as we go through the conversation. So I want to pose the same question to Ibrahim. Ibrahim, why do you think many of these protests have struggled to turn short-term mobilization into long-term change? If you could speak for about two to three minutes. Ibrahim. Thank you very much and thank you to all my colleagues and participants. It seems to me that the question is very relevant. Earlier, I heard an example in Nigeria when you mentioned oppression. That's the first factor. It's the one thing that really hurts the demonstration movements on the long term. In Guinea, we created a citizen movement in October since 2019, and this was to fight against Mr. Konde to change the Constitution. So we had to organize several protests. And I've been in prison several times. I've been sentenced to six months. And my family was also abused. My wife and my colleagues were also abused. And I was forced to exile. So the first factor which blocks the implementation of long-term positive change is police abuse. Only our civil society leaders, victims, but also sympathizers. And the other factor which contributes to discourage and discourage citizens from participating in the different nationalizations when someone called upon them is that the government is doing everything possible to prevent justice from taking hold. So during protests, if there are people who are killed and repressed, then the government tries to protect the police and refuses to give justice to the victims. So the next time this is a message that is sent to its citizens, say to them, look, there are people who die. There's no justice. And if you also go out on the streets, you're going to die. And this is a message which is fed by the government and has discouraged militants to respond. It appeals. The sound is inaudible. The third element is corruption. The government, the sound is inaudible. They interpret it as uninterpreted. So they're going to send the telecommunications initiatives. So we were able to resist this. But we're still doing so. And there were lots of protests after the matter of mandate. And there are leaders who swear that this is what we've done. We are uniting our trade which is deeply, deeply misogynist. And this helped us to provide security around our leadership and to escape from government. And again, inaudible. The interpreters are made into here, here, rarely, rarely. So there is an attempt to admit my liberty by controlling my friends, secondly, and pleading the exact parts of the media. OK, OK. In Guinea, we don't have any money. And so, we use social media. And the social media oftentimes are blocked by the government. They were blocked, and that, of course, has a great effect on our communication strategy. It is also limiting with regards to our strategies regarding the results that we are trying to achieve or that we expect. So some of these factors I've just described and that limits the efficiency or the effectiveness of our demonstrations trying to bring a positive change. But in Guinea, we are fighting against this possibility of a third mandate until April 2019. And since then, all of the demonstrations have been, since March of 2020, forbidden. And so we've basically decided to fight on the social media. We've left the streets, and we are trying to do this because we want to save people's lives. We buried 99 people during these three years, so there was no justice. And they sent the army down in the street. They were trying to prevent these demonstrations. And they want to continue the crisis. So we try to speak to Europe and the US and to demonstrate in front of the embassies and the Embassy of Guinea in particular. But we invite a lot of our members to always consider that those people are considered like dictators. OK, Ibrahim, thank you so much. I know there's still some more there, but we'll go through some of the points that we weren't able to get to with you through the conversation. Let me turn it over to Farida. I understand we were having some problems with our translation. So I apologize for that. But let me turn it over to Farida on the same question. Farida? OK, thank you very much. And I believe that the foreign speakers have actually touched on key things that really prevent social movement from eventually winning their struggle for social justice. There are a few things that I'm going to add to the repression that my colleague Ibrahim has talked about in Guinea. We do have to acknowledge the fact that the state's repression can only weaken or destroy a movement if the people who are on the other side are not necessarily strategically prepared for it. And sometimes social movements erupt in a very spontaneous way. And this has contributed, in many cases, like in the case of Togo, to eventually getting to a point where the leaders of the movement lack the strategy to respond to the government repression and the government abuse. So the lack of strategic response is also one of the reasons why we see this kind of problem. In addition to that, there is one key thing that sometimes we underestimate is the role of external actors. External actors can positively contribute to a social movement, but they can also harm a social movement. In the case of Togo, external actors were extremely detrimental to our movement when we launched protests in 2017 for over 12 months to demand the end of dictatorship in Togo. The international body that got involved in our struggle in Togo was the ECOWAS, and they managed to convince movement leaders to back off the streets and give a chance for negotiation. And those movement leaders didn't necessarily have the ability to negotiate in a way that they make sure our demands were incorporated or were answered during those negotiations. Unfortunately, the negotiation lasted about six months, and it has completely weakened the grassroots. And the government took advantage of this time to not only to buy time, but to consolidate itself. They deployed soldiers everywhere. In every single corner of Togo, the military regime of Konya Simbe put soldiers there. They banned protests, and even gatherings of small people of five are completely banned and repressed. In addition to that, they also spent resources in acquiring surveillance materials like Pegasus. Togo was one of the first users of Pegasus in Africa since 2016. And with this, they were able to spy and infiltrate WhatsApp Group and social media network of key community organizers and social movement leaders. And they went and arrested as many as they could, chasing orders to exile and even going as far as detaining arbitrarily some of them for years. And as I'm speaking right now, we have a total of 117 political prisoners in Togo. So the SL actors sometimes do come in not to support the movement, but to help the regime in power consolidate itself, especially when those playing the role of mediation are also facing similar demands in their own country. Because interestingly, the mediator of the crisis in Togo was the president of Guinea, who the people of Guinea were also protesting and asking to leave. So how can somebody who has no legitimacy in his country, how can somebody who's using violence to repress protests in his own country come and mediate a democracy issue and be the one that will help people attend democracy in another country. So that was also one of the reasons why movement failed. And finally, we also have the issue of lack of resources because you can only maintain a social movement for so long. And after we protested for about 18 months, people got exhausted, not just physically, but the emotional abuse, the torture, the financial implications also had a toll on the morals and the ability of people to keep up. Thank you very much, Farida. I wanna pull Dr. Manpili into this conversation. So, Zachariah, you have done a lot of work in your research in looking at youth led movements across the continent. And while youth led protests are not new, we are increasingly seeing that protests are becoming a way for young Africans to express their deep frustrations with their governments. And obviously, citizens and governments have to work together for any democracy to thrive. So what are the entry points here within the African governments? How can African governments engage proactively with young people and these youth led movements that we're seeing across the continent? And how can they work to address some of the issues that may be leading to a lot of these frustrations that young people are feeling? Well, thank you again. It's wonderful to be here with such an esteemed group of panelists and really high in honor to be on the chair stage with this group of activists. I think your question gets to sort of the heart of the challenge that confronts youth led movements across West Africa. And really, I think across the world, I wouldn't say that West Africa is unique. We see the same rise in youth led political action from the United States to Brazil, across Africa and into Asia. So I think it's a broader moment that we are living through here where there is this general disaffection with what governments are able to provide citizens. And I think it's really symbolic that many of these movements have adopted the nomenclature of citizens movements of movements designed to ensure that government fulfills its obligations to the population, something that many governments, especially in Africa and beyond, have really failed to do. And I think the challenge here is that we are living through a moment in which much of the international system has really failed its obligations to foreground the interests of ordinary people, both in terms of economic policy and political policy. So if we look at sort of some of the transformations that have unfolded in the West African context, of course we know that there has been a massive increase in investments from Asian countries and other parts of the world. What has this actually done for ordinary people? And I think the fact that we have a couple of panelists here from Nigeria is really emblematic. Nigeria has more billionaires than anywhere else in Africa. There's a very rapidly expanding elite in Nigeria that has become as wealthy as any people in the world. But according to the World Bank, all of this growth has not actually led to any reductions in overall poverty levels. So you have this really extraordinary phenomenon where many people in Africa are getting quite wealthy as a result of these changes at the global level, but that this wealth is not being shared broadly. And so now we are living through a moment where African countries represent nine of the 12 most unequal countries in the world. We talk a lot about inequality in the West. People don't seem to realize that inequality is a much bigger problem across Africa and this includes both very wealthy countries like South Africa, as well as very poor countries like Central African Republic, where we've seen huge spikes in inequality. And so I think that we have to really start to interrogate the fundamental nature of the social contract that shapes relations between governments and peoples. And I think that's what these youth movements have been really doing is that they're not simply asking for a share of some sort of electoral pie. There is a broad disillusionment with elections as being the sort of the endpoint of democracy, but they're actually going back out into the streets to question the entire nature of the political system. A political system that has largely failed in its capacity to not only ensure a broad distribution of wealth on the continent, but also to do much more basic things like protecting the citizens from this horrific pandemic that we're all living through. So to me, I think, you know, I'm not overtly optimistic, but I think that it is actually every once in a while that we need to have these moments of fundamental transformation. We need to ask very basic questions about the social contract that shapes relations between peoples and governments and start to interrogate why is it that it has gone so wrong in so many parts of the world and in many ways Africa has been ahead of the curve, right? Some of these issues have been deviled by the African government since the 1980s and 90s when we saw the last major set of uprisings across the West African sub-region. So to me, I'm optimistic in the sense not that I expect these moments will produce change quickly or easily, but I think that they're asking the right questions, right? I don't think that they'll be satisfied as we see in places like Sudan with these sort of top-down managed transitions in which elites simply trade power between them through some sort of managed elections but are asking governments to really start to fulfill their obligations and responsibilities to the citizenry. And I think that's the nature of the conversation that we all need to be having in Africa and beyond. Thank you. Thank you very much, Zack. Really key question and really key points that you've raised about interrogating the nature of a social contract. I wanna turn this over now to Jonathan, my colleague, Jonathan. In USIP's research, as we look at non-violent action movements, you take more of a global lens, you look at movements around the world. And as we look at the movements in West Africa and other parts of Africa, we've seen major moments of mobilization where the world's eyes are on these movements and where several people take to the streets. There's a lot of attention on social media, in the media about the movements and the scale of the movements that gathers a lot of attention. But when the attention fades, we don't see any type of real change happens, any type of real change happen after the attention fades. So from your research and the work that you all have been doing over the last couple of years, how do you think movements can overcome this challenge and try to create long-term change? Well, thank you so much, Oge. That's a really amazing set of questions. And I just wanted to say, as Dr. Mumpili did, it's a real honor to be here on this panel with such an incredible group of activists. I'm forever inspired by the work of people who are doing this kind of very dangerous, like oftentimes very dangerous, but very important work for bringing about a better world. So I just wanted to say that as an important prologue. So Dr. Mumpili mentioned this trend and highlighted that this rise in youth protest movements is indeed something that is not just happening in West Africa, but that we're seeing all over the world. There's some research showing that 2019 may have been the year for the most protests that we've ever recorded in history. Only sort of, and the momentum only being sort of brought down somewhat by the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and ongoing. And yet sort of a number of scholars have noted, I think this core frustration that many of the activists on this panel have brought up, that while more and more protest is happening, there's more and more engagement. And even these moments, Oge, as you brought up of incredible global attention, hope for change, the idea that if there are hundreds of thousands of people in the streets, surely something must come of this and then this lack of long-term institutional change. And why might that be the case? Well, I mean, one thing that has been brought up by several panelists and that shows up quite a bit in the research on this is the impact of social media. Ibrahima in particular was talking about the impact of social media in Guinea and how this is a really crucially important mobilizing tool, particularly when movements are faced with violent repression, they can turn to online activism. But this makes them increasingly vulnerable to new forms of digital government repression. There's a lot of good research out there and Farida was mentioning the Pegasus software, which is sort of the cutting edge of this digital repression. Authoritarian regimes once had sort of less control over social media and the internet, but they've rapidly learned, they've rapidly adapted. And now, even as the internet and social media are a crucial space for organizing, they are increasingly a dangerous space for government repression. And in addition to that, when the impact of the internet has largely been, it's much easier to mobilize a 100,000 people to participate in a protest thanks to viral tweets or Facebook posts or things like this. But what happens then is that a protest of 100,000 people doesn't have the same organizational infrastructure today that would have been required for a similar protest several decades in the past. A common parallel that many people have drawn in the past is to the March on Washington during the civil rights movement here in the US, which is this archetypal example of a huge protest that had an enduring political and cultural impact on the United States. The March on Washington had a vast organizational infrastructure behind it. It took months of planning. There was organic, there was careful vetting of the messages that were going to be included there, the speakers that were going to speak, the tactics that were going to be employed there. And this meant that there wasn't just a single large protest that kind of caught media attention for a moment. But once that protest was over, the organization, a set of organizations that had put it together, maintained themselves and were still in place to continue to advocate for change once that high profile moment of protest was over. And Farida highlighted the spontaneous nature of many of these protests here that sort of fueled by social media in a moment of sort of global attention. Many people can be engaged, but there is often not as much of that organizational infrastructure that can continue to do the sort of low profile strategic thinking and engagement with decision makers that can then lead to change laws, change political institutions, change economic institutions, or do the kind of education work that Sonami was talking about, and which is so crucial as well. So I think this is one key challenge that I would point to for many movements in this context, how to change, how to sort of move from a kind of a passion fueled moment of mass mobilization and create organizations that can continue to push through the less exciting times where there may not be as many people in the streets where government repression may be significant and so lower profile tactics are what's required for the long term. I think I'll just maybe give one very small example and then wrap up. As someone who studies nonviolent action, of course, the example of Gandhi is one that often comes up that we often talk about and think about. And today we think of Gandhi as a success, as someone who waged a successful nonviolent anti-colonial struggle. During his lifetime, he was largely considered to be a failure because his struggles went on for many decades. In the short term, they often failed to achieve the objectives that they sought. They were often stymied by negotiations with the British similar to what Farida was describing in Togo. And so I think it's important to recognize as well that nonviolent action and using sort of the tools of protest and citizen engagement to achieve political change has their particular challenges associated with movements today, but these challenges have always been a part of this method of struggle as well. That this is often, this is a long-term struggle and sort of short-term change is very much the exception rather than the rule. Thank you very much, Jonathan. And I really want to turn back, picking on some of the points that both you and Sakurai have made, turn back to DJ Switch. And DJ Switch, you are a creative, you're a musician, you're not a civil society, you're a typical civil society actor. And I think across West Africa, we're also seeing several voices like yours when we think about the movements in Burkina Faso or in Senegal that were also led by young people who are artists and musicians. So we see a lot of creatives across the continent also standing up and having their voices heard. How do you see your voice and the voices of other creatives connecting to the work of more traditional civil society actors? Are there areas of synergy there in the work that you all do? Sure, first, you know, this is such an important conversation. I'm so grateful to be here and to be a part of it, you know? I would like to talk about the influence of creatives, but before that, I want to say, in many cases, as creatives, what we produce is art. And I believe that art is the truest form of expression, no matter the language barrier, culture, ethnicities, beliefs, you name it. Art is the one form of expression that is understood by all. So whether anyone agrees or not, it is up to the listener, should I say the consumer of that art, but that artistic expression, which could either be vocal or visual, oftentimes passes the information in a clear or in an emotional or a fun way. Because of how powerful art can be, which evokes emotions and responses deeper than one would in most cases, say if they were listening or consuming information from traditional civil society actors, especially in a time where the civil society space is shrinking, we as creatives can say, we are like a bullhorn, right? We amplify the messages and the works of civil society actors if we choose to. Now to be true to that art is to express your experience because that in itself is true art, art serves by nature. And so as a creative, I go through what the average person, say in Nigeria for instance, so Africa as a whole goes through. And while civil society actors fight every day to hold out governments accountable, not many people. I'm talking about people outside the civic space now, not many even know the work civil society actors engage in to promote human rights or democracy. But if I can transcribe messages that is simply understood, I have in turn helped amplify those messages. And so back to the influence I was talking about at the start, the influence of creatives in society is such a powerful tool that they will, right? And people feel connected to that, either through their art or their style, swagger, those with a grass to graze story. That influence, I take for example, Fela Anikola Makuti, right? It was the power of the man, his art and his message. And that's what I like to call a triple threat. So this is something a lot of, even our political elites know and that's why they also seek to draw creatives there because creatives can help get their messages out there. The downside to that though is, especially if a politician has a poor record or is not honest, that rubs off of the creative as well as diminishes his own art. So I wanted to sort of quickly just give that background to what the art is and why it is imperative, not just, it's not just they come, maybe we can do this together. It's imperative that creatives like myself use our creativity to amplify the messages that the traditional civil society actors are trying to get across to people. Messages that typically wouldn't reach the grassroots. If I were to produce some sort of same music or short film or something, that would easily get to the grassroots faster than the traditional civil society actors. So it's imperative that creatives take on this fight as well because it is a fight at this point to pass these messages. So I believe that my voice as a creative is, as you can tell from everything I've been doing, has gathered that whole momentum from people who just either have admired what I've done before in the past, my art or something. And so they trust what I have to say, they believe what I have to say. And that's why it's also very important that creatives need to be honest with the art and be careful who they give that art to or what they use that art to do as a tool. Thank you so much, DJ Switch, spoken like a true creative. So I'm gonna go to Ibrahimah, Senami and Farida for another set of questions as well. And I encourage our audience to also join the conversation online using the hashtag West Africa democracy. So I'll go to the second set of questions. And this time I'm gonna start with Ibrahimah. So Ibrahimah, we've seen patterns basically where activists across generations often struggle to replicate the values that they once advocated for when they were part of a movement, when they eventually get into government, they struggle sometimes to replicate some of these values. What are the changes within your context in Guinea or looking at the broader context in West Africa? What are the type of changes you think need to happen within the political and social structures to prevent this from happening? And if you could please keep your response to two to three minutes, that would be helpful. Ibrahimah? Thank you very much. It's a really fundamental question. And we've asked this question to ourselves in Guinea because we've been through a number of transitions. The first in 2009, 2010, there was a civil society that had fought to affect change and when the president died and the army came to power, all of the civil society leaders went to the transition organizations or institutions in the legislative bodies and some went to the electoral bodies. But within the civil society, there was nobody left. There was no real organization that could continue the fight who could also monitor power. And the experience showed us that those people who left civil society were not able to maintain the values that they had when they were in civil society organizations. And the experience showed us that it's not just an issue of leaving because the government system that we have, the political system that we have is so powerful that when you get into it, even if you are convinced of certain values, you adapt to the system that is in place. And so we felt that after this fight that we were fighting, in order to participate in the government, we decided that the leaders of civil society that were in the first line that we could not participate in government, what we would push for to participate in government. Certain people participate in the government and then we would do a monitoring and following and follow up of this and that the power structures could be dismantled. The network sound is very poor. We've noticed that it's the same families that are still in power that continue to dominate. And the monitoring that we are doing will allow the authorities to dismantle the political system and to build a new political system that is based on values, on democracy. It's very important. We have so many examples. Our president, Al-Faq-Unteb, violated the constitution in order to stay in power. And he was an amazing demonstrator and activist, fighting for values and principles. He was fighting against a third presidential mandate. But when he arrived in power and became president, he found himself in a particular system which overtook him. He completely changed and he followed the system that was in place and he began defending those values instead of the civil society values. And then he basically showed us that the lesson that we need to learn is that it's not just to participate in a government that can change things because the problem is in the system. So we have to dismantle the system and build a new one based on strong institutions, on democratic principles, and the people who need to represent these new institutions must have conviction. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ibrahim. Those were very key and important points that you raised there, really going back to some of the points as well that Zachariah made about the importance of interrogating the nature of the social contract. So let me pull in Senami. Same question to you, Senami, and a response in two to three minutes, please. Thank you very much, Oge. I think what Ibrahim said is very important. And thank you very much for this question because I believe that it is very prevalent in Nigeria and even in the sub-region, we've seen labour leaders turn to tyrants. We've seen police school leaders and when they gain police school power, we've seen activists become people who enable dictators and authoritarian. And first of all, I'd like to say that power amplifies. So if someone who was in civil society was an activist, gets or gains police school power and starts to or regresses in their values, it's because they've always regressed in private. I mean, powers just amplify that. I've also always said that social and political systems in Nigeria, for example, is one that enables the worst that of people in society to emerge because it is designed to encourage corruption. It is designed to encourage brutality. And only those who are willing to indulge in this unconscionable practices will win and will end up holding political powers. I remember in 2019, I was embedded as a journalist that was reporting on one of the presidential candidates in Nigeria, one of the younger presidential candidates, Omoy Elishaware. And for the first time, that was when I truly saw what campaigning in the grassroots of Nigeria looked like. So at town hall meetings, for example, the campaign was greeted or the campaign trails greeted by talks who were demanding money from the candidate just to allow him to speak to them or to listen to the aspirations. And when he or the members of the campaign would refuse to give this money to this talk, so these people in the community, they'll come under attack. And in many instances, they were not allowed to speak to the people. These were people who wanted to do work, who wanted to speak to people, to listen to them. But because they wanted to deviate from the old order by not engaging with the corrupt practices that is entrenched in the old system, no one gave them an audience. On the other end, there are politicians who are part of the system, the old guard I would say, and their campaigns were large. They had people trooping because they had money to mobilize people. People are mobilized with money to show up at rallies in Nigeria. And they'll drop in, which choppers, they'll wave at the crowd, they'll throw cash, and then they'll leave. There was no platform for hearing a manifesto. There was no accountability of any sorts. And so when activists try to transition to positions of powers, they're confronted with these challenges. Those whose motivations are questionable, like I earlier said, will cave. And those who are strong in their convictions will fail no matter how great their convictions are to make that transition to power. I think this is a burden that civil society has to carry in Nigeria and even across the sub-region in campaigns around social change that must take note of this flow. And they must begin to reimagine how the desire solutions to change it. It has to become illegal, for example, to hire people who show up at rallies, to buy votes, to hire talks. Things that activists of conscience will never do to attain power. So this creates a system of merit and accountability when this happens. And I believe that the question of activists deviating from the values that they once stood for will no longer exist on the scale that it currently does. Thank you so much, Senami. Also really, really key and crucial points that you've raised. I'm gonna turn it to Farida. Farida, same question in about two to three minutes. Thank you, Ogey. I will add to what my colleagues have added. Our de facto leadership change needs to also be accompanied by institutional change because sometimes we only focus on the removal of the existing authoritarian regime and then we forget that regime was sitting on a system and we need to have a set of institutional reforms in order to ensure that those institutions are strong enough to be able to face ultimate political crisis because those always happen within any society. And today's I will add that we need to have a full denuclearization of politics because what's often happened is that under authoritarian governments, the army ends up being the most fund, the better funded and the most structured institutions. That is sometimes called upon by the people whenever they are facing any political crisis. We have seen that in Mali where millions of people were protesting and were asking the army to do a coup because they had enough of government repression. So we don't want to come to a point where the institutions are too weak to respond to the democratic needs of the masses and the army is now called upon to do the job while we know the army is not supposed to be in politics because they are not equipped for that. Whenever you involve army into politics then you are creating an opportunity for authoritarianism to rise. Then we also need to take into account the rise of marginalized groups because sometimes during social movement you have various groups of people that are fighting for a common good that have different grievances. But then when you break it down once the change occurs or the change of leadership occurs some marginalized groups' grievances are no longer taken into account. I'll give a simple example. I myself as a political activist I have a huge followership in Togo when it comes to denouncing authoritarianism. But the moment that I start speaking on women issues about women's rights then there are people within my circle in the opposition who are also opposed for authoritarianism but don't believe that I should be speaking on human rights. And some will even tell you that is not a priority. So I am a comrade for as long as I'm fighting for democratic change but that democratic change should not include a society in which I as a woman can have the same rights and the same opportunities as men. So we have marginalized groups that continue to be marginalized and this creates room for grievances and the same applies to the abuse of minority groups. But sometimes the minority groups are overlooked but those small grievances adapt and eventually it leads to more issues and conflicts in the future. And I will also add that we need to hold people accountable. The past governments have often committed enormous human rights atrocities but while trying to demand accountability and fight against impunity we also have to explore alternatives to retributive justice because sometimes when the former army lords and the military officials and people who are loyal to them see that they may end up in prison because of the killings and the abuse that they have committed they are more likely to create a crisis or to be tempted to create another coup like we see it in Bukina Faso that the army tried to come back because you are afraid of justice. So we have to also think about alternatives to justice systems that are not always retributive but can also be reparatory in a certain way. Then finally we never talk about this but I'm going to bring in again external actors. I believe external actors especially world powers that are more tolerant of democracy or that are promoting democracy as a principle should leverage on their power and leverage on the private sector and leverage on foreign aid and foreign direct investments because new governments are likely to need resources. They will need money, they will need funds to be able to provide the infrastructure growth that people were longing for or protesting for and for that the international institutions and foreign nations can actually require certain reforms from them before they give them those aid as incentives. So they could also leverage their need for resources their need for investments their need for economic growth to advance democracy as well as rule of law. Thank you very much Farida. We are almost coming to the end of this conversation but I want to go back to Dr. Manpili and Jonathan and see if you all have any thoughts that you would like to add to the conversation looking at the second set of questions and the responses that we've heard. If there are some additional points that you would like to add just a minute each for both of you. Zach, you want to go first? Sure. Yeah, just I guess two things that I would mention that I have more as sort of advice to movements as they sort of confront these challenges and Jonathan touched on this in a bit but I think there's a way in which we as the international community often expect results very quickly. We want to see social movements within a month after people take to the streets bringing about democratic revolutions in their countries and clearly we know from history as Jonathan made it very clear that that's not how social movements function and certainly not social movements in the African context. I give a lot of credit to the Sudanese revolutionaries who have remained on the street, who have stayed on the street now for almost three years and have tried to ensure that the transition in that country does not go off the rails and truly represents the kind of transformation that they're hoping for. I think they have the right timeline here. If we look at what's been happening in Nigeria, there's a way in which we talk about ensars as completely disconnected from Occupy Nigeria which was an exceedingly large protest in that country and I think it's better to understand those as part of a longer term process of political change because political change takes decades, not months and I think it can be disheartening and disillusioning when change doesn't come as quickly as you want to but I think the type of change that these activists are trying to bring is going to require much longer timelines and I'm hopeful from the commitment that I have seen thus far in many parts of the continent. The second point I think is that we have lost a certain kind of internationalism when it comes to social movements on the continent. If we look back again to the 1960s when the anti-colonial struggles were at their high point, one thing that was very central to their success was a kind of commitment to a pan-African mode of organizing where activists operated across borders on the continent and also forged connections to progressive movements in Europe, in Asia, in North America. I think there's a lot of desire to facilitate those types of relationships currently but I don't think we've quite gone to a point where movements in the United States, for example, are engaged in dialogue and exchange with movements on the continent as well as movements within specific African countries reaching into movements in other African countries. So I'm hopeful that we can start to reconstruct those kind of solidarities because I think, again, that's the kind of broad-based effort that is going to be necessary to bring about the types of changes that these activists are so bravely struggling for. Thank you so much, Zach. Jonathan, over to you in a minute. Any closing thoughts? Yeah, I think no major additional points for me just to reiterate, I think the points raised by Ibrahima, Sonamia Farida, and Zechariah are all exactly right in the money from my own research and the knowledge of the literature. I was struck by Ibrahima's point, in particular, about this transition where suddenly everyone who had been involved in civil society is suddenly in government and there's nobody left to maintain accountability. This is a pattern that, unfortunately, we've seen in many transitions, including some that I've had the privilege to study myself. And so I think that emphasis on long-term thinking on maintaining mobilization and maintaining accountability structures, even when the people who were once activist allies or labor leaders or others are now in power is absolutely critical. And then I would just second Zechariah's point about the need for international solidarity and learning across contexts. I think the research shows that this is one of the most sort of powerful ways that external actors can be of help to social movements through facilitating those kinds of convening and learning between activists. And so I think fostering that is a really crucial, a really crucial thing for the international community to be focusing on. Thank you so much, Jonathan. And so in the last couple of minutes that we have, I wanna go back around to all the activists on the panel today and ask one question that has come in from a lot of our audience, a lot of the folks who are tuning in today and just in the lead-up to planning this event. A lot of people wanna know, as an activist, what motivates you to continue the work that you're doing? We're having this conversation today against the backdrop of the Biden Administration's Democracy Summit, which is supposed to be a year-long series of conversations that will prioritize a renewed commitment to revitalizing global democracy. So as you think about what motivates you to continue the work that you do, what is your vision for democracy in your country and what are your expectations or your hope from these renewed conversations on democracy? I'm gonna start with Senami, then I'll go to Ibrahima and then Farida before we close out with DJ Switch. If you all could please keep your responses to a minute, one minute each. I know it's gonna be difficult, but please try to keep the response to one minute each. So let's go with Senami. Thank you so much, Oge. I'm excited for this part because it's the hopeful part, right? And in December of 2019, I traveled to the hotspot of a state in Nigeria, Co-Plate States, to an area called Bukos where farmers were being attacked by herdsmen and they had suffered incident attacks to document the conditions of internally displaced persons in villages there. The subjects of that story were living in what I called ungoverned spaces in Nigeria. There's no electricity, there was no cell signal, there was no school or any modern immunity. They even barely had any food and they were left to the mercy of their attackers. I was also almost attacked on that trip. And one of the things that the trip did for me was that it confirmed what I already knew that journalism and media freedom is very important for democracy and that in Nigeria, journalism is for life's sake. And even across the sub continents, despite the prevailing circumstances, I am particularly hopeful that true storytelling, regardless of the costs, that those who have been deprived of the dividends of democracy can begin to receive attention when people are moved by the stories that I and other people are telling to demand action and accountability through their sufficient anger. That sufficient anger is very key in driving social change. I'm hopeful that one day in the most unexpected manner that something will give and that young people in the sub region will begin to demand social change that can take their countries back. Nigerians are awake now and for me, that is really exciting. I'm hopeful that this demise of docility that we used to use to characterize Nigeria's space in the past will now motivate people to take action and speak out. I remember in 2019 when protesters will come out, for example, the Revolution now protests and a lot of Nigerians would have shot it down when people were arrested or detained a bit early or even brutalized. But now when that happens, there'll be a hashtag in a minute and everyone is speaking out. And that is really exciting to see that change happen from 2019 until now. And I think that something Jonathan mentioned is also very important about the structures that exist in traditional mobilization to keep in touch with people and to sustain the movement. And I believe that, you know, and I'm hopeful that conversations can start to happen around creating those systems used to exist in the traditional civil societies and mobilization patterns online and this can move digitally in a resilient way as well so that it can circumvent any form of state-sponsored digital repression. Now, during journalists, I encourage you do not cower regardless of the situation, even across the sub-bridge, and I know it's difficult, but people rely on you to hold the government accountable and we must resist every attempt to restrict free speech through illegal bans, through harassment and attacks on journalists and systems that uphold the right to freedom of speech and information. Thank you so much, Senami. So let's go over to Ibrahima. Ibrahima, please, in one minute. Express yourself. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you very much. The expectations for democracy in the world today, especially in Africa, in West Africa, are to encourage freedom of expression and the freedom to protest. It's only if you have these two freedoms that the people will be able to express their desires and their wishes and that they can make demands vis-à-vis political leaders, because unlike the United States or Europe, in Africa and in West Africa, the governments do what they want, and that's because they think that the people are ill-informed or not-informed or the people doesn't have the ability to make demands vis-à-vis their governments. And I want to remind you, once again, in Guinea, most Guineans don't know that it's because of their contributions with the taxes that governments can survive. They don't know that. And that's why in our country, you have a president say, I'm giving you a university or a school, but it's not his money, it's the people's money. So the people don't understand that, so information is critical. And so these two things can only come about only if we have a freedom of expression and if the freedom of protesting becomes a reality. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Ibrahim. Thank you so much, actually. Thank you so much, Ibrahim. We'll turn to Farida in a minute. Yes, thank you. Okay, in terms of what motivates me, I may sound silly, but I'm very much motivated by anger. I am, anger is my source of energy. Anger is what drives my action. And at times where I feel the most completely down and feel hopeless, it takes an act of injustice to ignite the anger and I'm back to taking action again. And I feel like the reason why maybe it has taken so long for us to get to the point which we're supposed to be at is because our people have been denied the right to be angry. We have been taught from childhood that we don't have the right to be angry against our leaders. We have to accept leadership no matter how it comes because our leaders are God sent and they are Godly, they are untouchable. And those who are angry are seen as the problems of society. So I'm going to send this message to the Togolese youth that I'm maybe listening to me. It is really very important that we, the young Togolese, we realize that... Saj, so the right to being angry is what's missing and it's keeping us from reaching a certain level. Unfortunately, we don't have any rights in Toga, but if you look at our past, even during the colonial period, our grandparents and our ancestors had fewer rights and fewer resources and fewer advantages that we have today. And so as weak as our freedoms are, as weak as our rights are, we have gotten to where we are thanks to the sacrifices made by our predecessors who became angry at the system, angry at the inequality of the system. So we have to learn to develop our extreme rage against injustice, against our domination and a rage will push us to act to put end to our oppression. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Farida. That was very powerful. So I will turn to DJ Switch. DJ Switch, in a minute, what motivates you and what is your hope for these renewed conversations on democracy? Thank you so much. Okay, you said that I'm truly a creative, so I'll do my best to be as descriptive as possible. My father passed away a couple of years ago. He was such a stubborn man, and I've been told that I didn't fall far from that tree. He never cared much to belong, especially if he believed he was doing the right thing. He used to always say to me, he used to always say to me, you are nothing if no one can trust you and trust begins with the truth. My father motivates me. The truth motivates me. The truth about Nigeria and West Africa or Africa as a whole is hidden from the people. That is what I believe. The blessing that is Africa is hidden from the people because it benefits the few to keep us in the state of Eli, to keep us as the poverty capital in the case of Nigeria or the poorest continent in the case of Africa. Despite all that we have, like I said in the beginning and in my piece, not just in resources, but as a people. The truth is that we can be on the world stage because we have what it takes, the intelligence, the resources, the manpower. And as rightly said, this event is happening on the backdrop of the Democracy Summit. But my expectations for democracy strengthening in Africa is very low, not because it is not possible, but our African leaders need to wake up and drink that coffee, not smell it, because the coffee has been brewing for a long time. They have been around the world. Why keep the truth away from your people? Where young people like myself have had to fight and on ending fight only to be defeated and for what? Be Africa focused, be development focused, be innovation focused, be education focused, be security focused, be your people focused. This rhetoric of training democracy has, and most likely will be a means to an end to leaders who are not truly willing to let democracy be a guiding light. Because the moment they do, that will be the day we will begin to live the truth, which is Africa is one of, if I dare say, big British continent on earth. Now as a people to wrap up, we must continue to hold our leaders accountable in whatever capacity we find ourselves, be it creatives, as officers of the law, officers of the courts or as individuals with just the power to vote. These truly strengthen and continue to make the case for democracy. This is how we continue to enforce that democracy is truly a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Thank you. Thank you so much, DJ Switch. Thank you everyone. When USIP started this conversation several months ago, we sought to organize an event that will highlight the work of youth activists across West Africa. Those who are using their voices and their agency to strengthen democracy in their communities. We wanna thank our co-host of this event, the National Endowment for Democracy, for working with us to pull this conversation together. Our hope is that this discussion doesn't end here. So I really wanna thank Senami Koja from Nigeria, Farida Noborema from Togo, Ibrahim Adialo from Guinea-Conakry, DJ Switch from Nigeria for lending your voice to this conversation and being part of the discussion. We applaud you for the wonderful work that you're doing in your individual countries and across the region. And also wanna give my immense thanks to Dr. Zakaria Mampili and Jonathan, my colleague, for adding their insights as well to this discussion. For our audience, please continue to follow this conversation on Twitter using the hashtag West Africa Democracy. And as we started this conversation, we would like to end it again with the spoken word peace Africa speaking by DJ Switch. Thank you so much everyone for tuning in and enjoy the rest of your day. The leaders of tomorrow, a common phrase. In me, there is a common face, discontentment, pain and suffering mixed in a local cocktail of pride and puffery. This is commonplace, the leaders of tomorrow, a common phrase. Ambition and greed help me, I need to feed. How else will I reach where I need to be? This is common sense, the leaders of tomorrow. A common phrase. In me, there is a common space where my young is unborn and my unborn is he or she that would bring me to my knees. This is a normal case, the leaders of tomorrow. A common phrase. In me is a tunnel filled with the darkness that the light cannot seem to crack. A tunnel that never seems to break. Oh, how I yearn for the light, for the right to do with me, what I choose to do with me, yet you refuse to leave me be. And now my leaders of tomorrow are off to a safer place.