Thread by @Chxta

This tweet, and the reply, are both hilarious and sad at the same time. I normally don't engage such nonsense, but herein lies a teachable moment, so let's go.

First, in a thread of 5 tweets, it's the single one that pointed out the flaw in the strategy of the victims you saw.

https://twitter.com/emaenimofficial/status/1534973088118493185

It says a lot about your ability to assess multiple streams of information at the same time, and as important, it speaks to your emotional state.

Basically, you're looking for affirmation, so anything that runs contrary to what you'd like to hear, can only be from an "enemy".

Which is fair at an individual level, but when an entire group begins to act in this manner and expects the results to be favourable, one can only wonder...

So here's the thing: my thread began by pointing out that this voter suppression tactic had been tried successfully before.

I then pointed out that what happened yesterday was simply this: the people who did it before, have moved the tactic to a different point in the chain.

That IS strategy.

Good or ill, it is strategy, and one place a majority of us keep failing at is strategy.

Now, at the risk of being (again) accused of "victim blaming" for pointing out the obvious, let's analyse yesterday and previous issues...

INEC has been struggling with voter registration. This is a documented fact.

Too many people from my part of the country have turned their backs on the electoral process. This is also a documented fact. Only recently I praised @UchePOkoye for his work on voter registration.

So if both these things are true, how is it that you can't see that setting a day aside for a lot of you to go register, and making a public announcement of that action, creates an opening for your adversaries to use a strategy meant to shape the battlefield to their advantage?

Of course, it's the person that points this out that becomes a "hater" because in your normal emotional reaction to stuff, you won't pause to ask a fundamental question: "is there anything I'm doing wrong and if so, what?"

This inability to self-reflect is in many cases the bane of my people.

Last year I took the time to pen a piece speaking to this issue. bit.ly/3O7zC3A

In summary, the character I'd like to be like in TFA is Obierika, not Okonkwo. Too many of us want to be Okonkwo.

Here's the thing, Okonkwo didn't end well. We need to learn to pause and reflect.

Throwing tantrums won't change a damn thing.

My thread last night was simply a call for a change of tact to a more sustainable strategy, but given the emotional reactions, I doubt it would happen.

So given that we're unlikely to change our emotional approach to things, here's what is likely to happen.

Many of the Alaba boys will go back to their shops and won't engage the process further.

Many of our people will cry foul from the sidelines. We won't learn patient work.

So in four years we'll be back here again. Screaming about how #Nigeria hates us and shortchanges us.

You can flip this to the strategy that's been employed by pro-Biafra groups in their quest.

A lot of shouting and emotional blackmail, no patient work to engage any process.

Brutal fact: the world doesn't reward emotion. If it did, the Palestinians would have had their country a long time ago.

The world rewards emotion ONLY when that emotion is used as a tool to supplement preparedness.

Are we prepared? No.

So anything we wee, we should take.

Finally, to those advertising unfollowing me, people better prepared to run troll farms than you, the BMC, said precisely these same words to me years ago. I didn't die.

I don't live, eat or die by my follower count on social media, so don't let the door hit you on your way out.