BECOMING THE VOICE: ABAKPA JONATHAN

Jonathan Abakpa's reaction to humble beginnings, has disrupted the narrative, instead of becoming mediocre he has pushed himself and strived to raise others out of similar situations, Jonathan's story is an inspiring read, and we honoured to have him share his story with us!

Abakpa Jonathan, preferred to be called Adole by all his close associates and relatives, is a young Nigerian who hails from Kogi State, Nigeria. He is a Proud African and believes in a United Africa someday, a youth Development expert and a good governance advocate with Love for women's rights.

Growing up was never easy, Jonathan hailed from a poor background. So he had faced a life of typical lack, good education was far fetched, access to health sevices difficult, and water meant trekking a distance.

For Jonathan, access of these meant to become rich, it meant not living in the ghettos but in very rich areas, and no one, not even in schools thought him that he, his parents and siblings had rights to these, that it was strictly a duty of the government, no one ever told him that his parents paid heavily through tax and he too did same for the provisions of these. He was never told that he was being robbed.

Inspirations began to grow when Jonathan would listen to  the tales of Nelson Mandela from his poor mother, when she would speak of the South Africa struggle and relate to him the dreams she had of Nigeria, when she will sing the old school song by Adams Funmi "Nigeria my Beloved Country". This built a strong sense of redefining Nigeria, as Jonathan closely had in his Childhood's thoughts that all his mother told him of South Afrcia in the struggle from apartheid were obvious within his state and country, but in this case it was not racial but class difference created by economic disadvantage. He grew with enraged emotions, perhaps biased too, but he lacked the proper channel and focus to address this.

He had read quite some poems about colonialism, key poems he had read were Boy on Swing and his thoughts however got provoked when he read PC. Umeh's Ambassdor of poverty,he related this frequently on the streets and he too classified himself an ambassador of poverty and so, he began through the lines of poetry and articles, reading them out in secondary social nights, and of course this earned him quite some stages to speak within  Nigeria, and some parts of Africa, in most cases representing Nigeria at the age of 18.
Pretty sure, that this was not enough and critical to his believe that the minds of youths in Africa must be redefined to help in creating the Africa of our dreams, he pioneered and founded a Movement in Nigeria which grew in extension to Temale Ghana and had members in Accra begin an anti-corruption crusade, the movement had quite a number of campaigns more in Nigeria and Jonathan being a founder had at 21 years began to face discouragements from family, who felt he was too young to get in the field of an anti-corruption crusades and were skeptical of his motives since the Movement was named Green Revolutionary Movement. So from critical newspaper articles and letters to Sudan, Ghana, Tanzania and Cameronian Union of students and youths, he felt it was wise get into community and grass root mobilization and sensitization against corruption. So from the typical rural communities of Anyigba Jonathan had commenced town hall meetings to towns in Bauchi, kano and Kwara states in Nigeria.

Still driven by his passion he met a global platform of young persons called Activista, so he began to engage with them and grew from Being a good governance campaigner to beginning  understand the dynamics of his childhood encounter, when he was trained on Tax Justice, so he began to relate that he paid sufficiently for all to make his life comfortable and he knew this would not make anyone anymore an ambassador of poverty if only there would be fair tax systems backed with transparency and accountability in Government.

Again, he got entangled with this platform and began to campaign and advocate  for justice in the tax system and  so from demands to the National Assembly on the Nigerian/ Maurituis DTT, to street senstization on Taxation, to demands through continual advocacy in Kogi State for Transparent Tax System, Jonathan through the Activista platform in Kogi State in collaboration with the State Government in 2016 were able to discover loopholes through which the state government were losing revenue to tax looting to the sum of 35.7 million naira annually. Jonathan's campaign on Tax Justice is one he would push till there is justice in the tax system.
Jonathan believes that every young person owes the society a duty to create peace, ensure justice and pursue happiness while requesting accountability from government. So, he enjoins all young persons to first, identify their passion and then link it to the reality of their society. Then they must identify potential allies and foes, this would in many ways help them strategies who will aid them and who would be against their goals. Then thirdly they must act firmly with every deep sense of urgency while applying wisdom. He calls on all to build a world for all with a strong legacy for the generations to come.

Jonathan is not just a good governance advocate or youth development expert, he is equally a Peace advocate and ambassador and his stories of community mobilization are been shared by the Kofi Anan Foundation, the European Union, the Global Community for Resilience Fundiread and United Nations as strong inspiration for youths around the world. While his conjugal duty has earned him the Distinction of the Associate Fellowship of the Royal Commonwealth Society for promotion of the values and principles of the Commonwealth, Human Rights Champion and Peace Ambassador Actionaid Nigeria, and PVE Ambassador GCERF/United Nations.
For Jonathan, it has been a long walk, but the Long walk only just began! The World needs us, if Not us, then who? If not now, then When?

CONTACT JONATHAN ABAKPA
ON FACEBOOK: JONATHAN ABAKPA
EMAIL: Revolutiongreen702@gmail.com