 Newton's law of politics, each one must move on to end voter apathy. When the renowned physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton provounded his laws of motion, it is unlikely he had politics and politicking in mind. While his focus might have been on science, recent events in our country and politics really get the mind wondering if this law should not be implemented in our client. How does this law apply to solving the problems in our nation? Particularly the law of inertia, Newton's first law states that a body at rest or moving in a straight line at a constant speed will continue to do so unless acted upon by a force. If I had to put this in plain language, simply means the status code remain unless there is an external force applied on it. Before we take a deep dive into Nigeria, let's take a look around the world to see where this law of motion has been put to good use. On the 1st of January, 1501, the king of Denmark was deposed from his throne by a rebel army. He was king for four years, but was greatly disliked and was declared, you know, deposed. The Carnation Revolution or April 25th revolution occurred in 1974 in Lisbon and it produced major social, economic, territorial, demographic and political changes in Portugal and its overseas colonies. The People Power Revolution, also known as the February Revolution from February 22 to 25th in 1986, was a nonviolent civil resistance against regime violence and electoral fraud. It led to the end of a 20-year detetion and the restoration of democracy in the Philippines. The peaceful revolution was a process of social-political change that led to the opening of East Germany's border with the West and the end of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in the German Democratic Republic and the transition to a parliamentary democracy which enabled the reunification of Germany in October 1990. This also happened through nonviolent initiatives. So what's the point? The status quo can and should be challenged through nonviolent means. How do we do this? There are five stages outlined by George Leakey in his 1903 book and his 1906 titled The Manifesto for Nonviolent Revolution. Stage one, cultural preparation or conscientization, which means educating, training and conscious raising of why there is a need for a nonviolent revolution and how to conduct a nonviolent revolution. Stage two, building organizations. Affinity groups are organized to provide support, maintain nonviolent discipline, organize and train other people into similar affinity groups and networks. Stage three, confrontation. Organize and sustain campaigns of strikes, sit-ins, marches, boycotts, blockades to disrupt business as usual. Stage four, mass non-cooperation. Similar affinity groups and networks of affinity groups around the country and the world engage in similar actions to disrupt business as usual. Stage five and the final, developing parallel institutions to take over functions and services. Again, until an external force, which is you and I, exert a force on your friends, on your family, your neighbors to move, until one person moves on, until the world decided enough is enough, the status quo will remain. I totally agree with you. See, we have a problem of ideology, to be told. You know, we are a nation where we believe in a story that was told and we also, we are, abject poverty also cost a lot of things because a typical man just think of, okay, once there is time for election, I have a, my daughter or my daughter has to pay for school fees and stuff like that. And this 7,000 naira is maybe 3,000 for school fees. I have not eaten for three days. 2,000 will be able to, let me collect this 7,000, 10,000 and vote for the person who gave me this, right? And it's more like a business and stuff like that. For politicians, they look at it like it's a business. I come to you, I need a vote. I price you. How much is it? 10,000. I pay you. I'm done with business, doing business with you. Now, you talk about cabars. You see people, individuals are saying, you know what, how much will it take you to win an election, general election, presidency, 100 million, 100 billion naira. Four people come together and say, I drove 25, 25 billion individual. They become cabar. Now, this money is what they used to pay you for one or two things to buy votes, right? Now, those cabars will come back and collect their money at their own time, at their own interest rates. You understand? Now, at that time, the person that won the election is not concerned about dividend or democracy. He's actually concerned about how do I pay back the 100 billion? Return on it. That's the first agenda. That's the first agenda. You understand? So now, first, now, when you are not bringing in policies, you are bringing in innovations to projects that is not showing them ways to generate that money back to the owner. It's useless. You understand? So, the ideologies will come by, we even have banks. It's surprising that banks will lend politicians money for election because it's a good little town. So a bank will give you loan if you request. They don't have, it's not an epic hour, a bank is a bank to make money. So it's a business for them. It's just like what I said in any way. So now, it calls back to our ideology. Our evolutionary process, the way we select people, not based on tribal sentiment, even in our businesses. If we want to do a evolutionary change beyond expectation from government, we need to change our ideology to start thinking how do we contribute to the country? If I want to make a change, just like FinTech did in financial sector, that was an intellectual revolution. It didn't cause any alarm, there is no plan card, there is no blockage or whatever. I have the solution, I have new technology to convince, then the regulator has to come and say, okay, this thing is making sense. Let us now bring policies, licenses that will suit this thing they are doing. That is an evolution in banking. But I think the second part, which you said, affinity groups, is what we are already seeing, that is happening with 2023 and the PTOB campaign. People are going out there using their own money to get people to come on board. They are sensitizing people, they are groups sensitizing people, and no one is asking for anything in return. Everyone is doing what needs to be done. And I fear that if, I don't want to put out my fear out there, but I fear that if that doesn't happen, then a non-violent revolution may not be possible. So I think you've touched on a number of things, both of you. So let me start with what I call the weaponization of poverty. So what the average politician has done is to weaponize poverty. So the poverty in Nigeria is not by chance, is very strategic. Like you said, this man has school fees to pay. Let's even leave school fees, he has to feed. So until the man decides that his hunger, today's hunger, is not enough to sabotage his children's future. Until he makes that decision, he will continue to take that money. I agree. That's number one. Number two, in terms of affinity groups, until we all begin to look beyond ourselves and decide that this thing is beyond me, if you look at the percentage of people that are living in the country, I assure you that 67% of them are doing it for their children. Because they don't see a future here. Until we decide that our future is more important than the birth of bread. Until we decide that our birthright is more important than a plate of potage. Until we make those decisions that we have to make. That's why I say it's another force. So this force is a force that says, you know what, we're not taking money anymore. So I like what they say, we know they give shishi. But you must realize that we're not at the point where people would vote without giving shishi. So for some people you will use your money and give that shishi for the change that you want. And like you said, it's going to be very, very tough. It's going to be really, really tough on the set of people that have sacrificed their money, their time, their families, their friends, you know, some people, their jobs to try and create a change. Guess what? You don't fill a tree by one fell swoop. Exactly. It's by hacking, it's by constant hacking. So we might not make, we might not down the tree, but I assure you that you make a huge dent on the tree and the tree will start to shake. So the next time you take that swipe at the tree is not as strong as it was four years before. I mean, so that's exactly what we were talking about, a force. And that force starts with every single person. Each one must move one because people are tired. People generally fail as if, you know, their votes don't count. So you must ask yourself, if your votes don't count, then why are they buying your votes? Exactly. I mean, your votes definitely counts. I think that is just to fulfill all right. I don't think that they buy the votes because the votes actually count. I think they buy the votes just to fulfill righteousness. I assure you, if the votes that they are buying do not count, I assure you the politician will not spend his money on that vote. The reason why they buy those votes is because, yes, there's massive regain going on. But you know that for the media, many times you have to still present the numbers. Those numbers have to, I saw a video recently about, you know, people cooking up names, cooking up stuff. There's massive regain going on. Even, you know, the biggest problem the Nigerians don't realize is, elections don't happen in Nigeria on election day. Exactly. We need to wake up and realize that elections are not one election day in Nigeria. How many times have you seen an upset? You've heard about upsets abroad because those votes do count. Even elections happen in elections, we must know those things, and we must be proactive in creating problems. Solutions. Exactly. Just to add to what you said, you know, you talked about anger. I give you an example of leki massacre story and stuff like that. If you carefully observe, the stuff was going very smoothly just before the movement of food. It was food that turned around everything. And also to add to that, you also see that we have people who are actually doing stuff. There is no structure in terms of localized structure. It's not just about talking. We have to start acting. Absolutely. Each one must move one for us to see the change that we require. I mean, it's really as simple as that. Or else we'll just jack by this. It is time to finally draw the curtains on this week's episode of The Advocate. However, The Advocate continues on our social media platforms on Facebook plus TV Africa hashtag The Advocate NG, on Twitter and Instagram at plus TV Africa, hashtag The Advocate NG. To catch up with previous broadcasts, go to plusTVAfrica.com slash The Advocate NG. Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel plus TVAfrica. Till next week, same time on this same station. Let's keep advocating for a better society. Bye bye.