Public Intellectuals and Street Protests in Nigeria, By Justine Dyikuk

It is on the shoulders of these and other elder statesmen/women that the young can cry “Sore Soke.” What would further guarantee a change of narrative in our country is when academics marry the gown and the town towards producing global citizens with intellectual probity, who are dressed for street protests for a just and equitable society. 

The cliché, “ideas rule the world”, suggests that a zero index, with regards to ideation, constitutes a huge deficit for good governance. In developed climes, engineers, scientists, captains of industry and other stakeholders are produced in the classroom. This shows that mass mobilisation for sustainable change is a consequence of qualitative literacy and showing poverty the exit door. Where illiteracy and material poverty thrive, a docile citizenry emerges.

From Plato to Socrates, Aristotle to Aquinas, and Augustine to Albert Camus, public intellectuals have shaped history. In both theocratic and secular states, intellectual power has always been an open cheque for transitioning to the next level. This is why mentoring young men and women for the changing narrative is key. This can only come about if academics do not shy away from raising global citizens.

This is where the cerebral social critic and Nigeria’s finest political scientist, who doubles as the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese and Convener of The Kukah Centre plus its sister Not for Profit Organisation, The National Peace Committee, Most Rev. Dr. Mathew Hassan Kukah, come in. It is crucial to note that there is no Nigerian, at home or in Diaspora, who has delivered public lectures like Bishop Kukah does. To be sure, students of Kukasiya, a movement which marries leadership and faith with public policy as instruments for sustainable change are increasingly being incubated by the Bishop’s superior arguments about the Nigerian State.

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