“So, in 2018, I prayed about it and I informed my wife and what she told me was that ‘you know politics in Nigeria is dirty and I know your heart and I know the system is what it is and I don’t want anything that will soil your hands’ and I told her that the truth of the matter is politics will always be dirty and dangerous until good people start to be intentional about putting like-minds in the system.”
Bankole Wellington, better known by his stage as Banky W, said this in an interview with ARISE TV when asked why he decided to enter politics despite being a famous musician and businessman. He claimed he entered politics in order to change things beyond activism
The musician, who is running for the PDP’s House of Representatives nomination in the Eti-Osa Federal Constituency, claimed that the longer young people stay away from traditional politics, the more dysfunctional society will remain.
He explained that though the problem of Nigeria is a leadership issue, yet the solution from his point of analysis is from the bottom, that is, among the people.
When he appeared on Arise TV’s The Morning Show, he remarked, “We must interact with the system from where it is and fight for what we stand for and what we want to happen.
However, activism and lobbying are meant to bring about betterment, so if you haven’t noticed the change you’re looking for, your activism is insufficient. “As a result, the message began to shift for me, from simply raising awareness through action and advocacy, to suggesting that we need to start transitioning from protests to politics. Among my peers, I think I have been involved in more activism and protests in the past without violence”.
