NIGERIAN YOUTHS AND THE BURDEN OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
The greatest
assets of any nation are not its mineral deposits or its oil wells. The
greatest assets of any nation are not those on Forbes rich list, having more
private jets and yachts than they know what to do with. The greatest assets of
any nation are its youths. The future of a nation lies in its posterity and is
determined by the quality of its youths. This is because youths are the
powerhouse, the stronghold and the nucleus of any nation. They are the drivers
of any nation’s prosperity. The hope of Nigeria’s future is hung on the shoulders of its
future leaders- the youths.
Youths are the ones with the power to define
the success or failure of a nation. Any nation serious about development has to
treat its youths as what they really are- potentials to be harnessed, and not
problems to be solved.
Statistically,
youths make up about 60% of Nigeria’s over 170 million population. This is huge
by any standard. This percentage also constitutes the major resource base of
Nigeria. However this huge youth bulge has not translated to commensurate
representation in the political space. The major political players in Nigeria
today are the same set of people Nigerian youths read about in Primary School Social Studies
class. In fact, majority of today's youths weren’t even born when Nigeria’s current
President, 72-year old Muhammadu Buhari, was Military Head of State in 1985!
For these
youths, the saying that they are the leaders of tomorrow has become less
significant than a cliché. The question they ask is, ‘if we are the leaders of
tomorrow, when will tomorrow come? When will we lead?’
There has been
increased call for young people to be given opportunities in the political
space to lead in recent times. When in 2011, former Military Head of State,
Ibrahim Babangida described Nigerian youths as ‘clueless and unfit to lead’, he
faced widespread criticism. It goes without saying that Nigerian youths deserve
to and should play more leadership roles in governance. The big question is,
are the youths ready and capable?
The
challenge of leadership in Nigeria transcends that of being ‘youth’. Just being
‘youth’ is not a sine qua non for effective leadership. What is the use of
having young people in leadership who are not competent and credible?
The issue of
competence and credibility is the crux of the matter.
Do Nigerian
youths have what it takes? Can they effectively undertake the burden of
national development? What will the
future of Nigeria be like with the present youths in charge?
Are Nigerian
youths leaders of today in their little niche, preparing to lead the nation
tomorrow? Are Nigerian youths any better
than the older generation they blame for all the rot under which the country is
submerged?
Will the
young person who disobeys something as simple as a traffic light, obey
something as serious as the constitution? Will that selfish youth who hides
behind a laptop and says that as long as my family and I are safe, others can
burn selflessly preside over the affairs of a complex nation like Nigeria? What
kind of a nation will Nigeria be when she is run by a group of self centered
young people who do not believe in hard work, meritocracy and due process?
If Nigerian
youths must undertake the burden of leadership, they have to first show
capacity to lead.
The capacity
to lead begins with having the desire to lead. This desire is what propels them
to acquire knowledge and skills necessary for effective leadership. Nigerian youths must therefore put away their
apathy for politics and become the change they seek.
To be fair,
one cannot completely blame the youths for not taking much interest in national
development. The poor leadership Nigeria has battled with for years has
produced disillusioned youths without a sense of belonging and patriotism.
Nigerian youths don’t feel they are equal stakeholders in nation building, thus
they remain aloof.
Another
challenge faced by Nigerian youths today is the dysfunctional system which
produces young people incapable of addressing contemporary issues facing them
in the world today. The education young Nigerians receive doesn’t prepare them
for the real world they face after school. The education system in Nigeria
produces youths lacking in the requisite knowledge and skills required for solving
societal problems. These youths become job seekers instead of job providers.
These
challenges notwithstanding, Nigerian youths have to change their mentality if
they must effectively carry out the role of developing and safeguarding this
nation for the future generation. Nigerian youths must, as a matter of urgency,
understand that if they want change in Nigeria, then they must actively get
involved in partisan politics.
Meaningful
change in any nation that desires growth, development and equal opportunity for
its citizens begins with having credible and competent people with a deep sense
of patriotism in government.
According to
Ohimai Amaize, a youth leader and Special Assistant to Nigeria’s former
Minister of Sports, having credible and competent people in government doesn’t
just happen. They must first be voted into office. To be voted into office,
they must have emerged from a political process. For that emergence to have happened,
credible and competent people must have voted them in. If- emphasis on the
if- there are no credible and competent people in the political parties, credible and competent contenders won’t stand a chance.
Merely
utilizing the voting power is not enough and limits the participation of young
people in the process. By not actively getting involved in politics, young
people sabotage themselves and bear the brunt of bad leadership.
One of the
reasons given by young people for political aloofness is the ‘dirtiness’ of
Nigerian politics. Politics is not bad or dirty in and of itself.
The ‘dirtiness’ in politics is caused by the bad people in politics. If
Nigerian youths want clean politics, then they must take responsibility for
creating it. One cannot desire a change one doesn’t want to be a part of. And
one cannot change what one doesn’t confront.
Young people
in Nigeria are very active on social media but their utilization of these all
powerful media is faulty. If young people in Nigeria must undertake the heavy
burden of national development, then they must galvanize and organize
themselves beyond social media conversations.
Beyond the wailing and cussing on
Twitter and Facebook, young people must devise strategic ways of seeking
solutions to challenges OFFLINE. How many young social media political commentators are card carrying members of a political party in Nigeria?
After complaining
and venting their frustrations on social media using sensational headlines, the
real work is done offline. This could be in the form of seeking reforms in
political parties to reduce the cost of party tickets or seeking constitutional
reforms to make youth electoral participation more feasible. The political
party structure is a good foundation to start from if young people are serious
about national development. Any meaningful reform happens at the constitutional
level or the level of the political parties and not on Twitter or Facebook.
Again, to
effectively shoulder the burden of national development, Nigerian youths must
leverage on their biggest advantage - their number. Nigerian youths must put
away primordial sentiments and pursue collective interests.
One of the
problems militating against this is disunity and lack of sense of shared
purpose prevalent in young people. Youths cannot and do not trust
themselves. Hence, they are unable to
come together on an organized platform to drive an agenda successfully.
Interestingly,
the older generation is more united when they drive their own cause. Young
people have a lot to learn from the way the older generation put aside their
differences to play politics. We saw this play out in 2013 when strange
bedfellows came together to form the All Progressives Congress (APC) with the
sole aim of wrestling power from the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP). In
spite of their differences, they were able to achieve their primary goal. Hate
it or love it, politics is a game of interest and number. Young people have to
come to terms with this reality and embrace it.
Finally,
Nigerian youths must be committed to fighting their cause. No one will do it
for them; not the politicians they blindly support or a system designed to
exclude them in the first instance. If they want the issues affecting them to
be addressed, then they must take responsibility for driving the discourse. Political discourse in Nigeria has been
designed by the elite and young people struggle to fit into that discourse. By
so doing, they ignore the very issues that concern them. I worry when youths
are engrossed with the foolery of politicians instead of focusing on issues
such as youth inclusion in government, how government policies affect young
people, etc.
How many
people have sat down to study the National Youth Policy and how past governments
fared in its implementation? Beyond wailing about the ethnic composition
of President Buhari’s cabinet, have the youths taken time to find out what his
youth agenda is? I would have thought Nigerian youths would be more concerned with
who their new youth minister will be and what he/she brings to the job instead of the petty
politicking going on between the ruling APC and the opposition PDP.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it'. If Nigerian
youths don’t rise up, unite and fight for their cause, no one will. Even though the older generation has failed us, generations yet unborn will never forgive us if we fail in the task of fixing this nation.
XoXo
NAWTIprof
Source: #REVEALED with Ukay featuring Ohimai Amaize on www.amplifiedradio.net
*Photo credit: risenetworks.org
"Any nation serious about development has to treat its youths as what they really are- potentials to be harnessed, and not problems to be solved".
ReplyDeleteThis is very very deep Prof. Very deep. We are potentials and not problems. Thank you
Prof, this your article is timely. At a time when youths seem to be bereft of ideas and floating in this air, your article has challenged me know that I have a responsibility for fixing Nigeria. I can't leave to Buhari or other politicians. Today, I make the commitment to be the change I seek. To develeop myself and to make Nigeria better for my children and children's children. God bless you.
ReplyDelete*Rushes off to study the National Youth Policy*
ReplyDeleteThis is actually a very good writeup. I recommend it to all Nigerian youths especially those who desire a better country for all of us.
ReplyDeleteThe write in an unbiased manner, clearly noted the importance of youths, what they are not doing right, why they are doing so, what they ought to do and how they will do it. The writer also used real-time examples to buttress her points.
The clear message in this text is that young people must "actively" & with all sense of "preparedness" create the Nigeria of their dream. This message from Ukachi Chukwu will really redefine my political pursuit as a young person.
Thank you Prof. Ukay
Prof, saying I have been challenged to my core is a gross understatement. Us young people have been the ones sabotaging ourselves. It's time for us to come together, put away our differences and become the change we see.
ReplyDeleteI feel the passion behind this. And I completely agree with the thought that the onus of nation building falls on us youths. We are blessed with both human and natural resources, true. Poor management of these resources has left us where we are right now in Nigeria, true. The question however is, how do we fix this? I do believe when we start getting our values right, we can initiate the process of nation building. The challenge now with most youths, is the need to become wealthy and prominent in society and because there is a proliferation of bad examples around, they tend to stick with the status quo: apathy, greed and negligence of values.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate you Prof, for taking time out to publish this. Sometimes fighting fire with fire is the most effective way to quench a big fire. There is no shortage of bad examples out there, then there should be no shortage of good examples. We should not stop fighting to become a nation, based and built on sound values and moral code. Well done Prof, well done.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteGood write up. Truth is, the youths of Nigeria do not know their rights and are impatient to study youth policies. The mentality of the youths must be changed to achieve meaningful results in the fight for youth representation.
ReplyDeleteWell said Uncle T. Thank you for taking the time to read. God bless.
DeleteThis is actually a very good writeup. I recommend it to all Nigerian youths especially those who desire a better country for all of us.
ReplyDeleteThe writer in an unbiased manner, clearly noted the importance of youths, what they are not doing right, why they are doing so, what they ought to do and how they will do it. The writer also used real-time examples to buttress her points.
The clear message in this text is that young people must "actively" & with all sense of "preparedness" create the Nigeria of their dream. This message from Ukachi Chukwu will really redefine my political pursuit as a young person.
Thank you Prof. Ukay
God bless you Doc Obinna E. C. Ebirim for reading. Appreciate you.
DeleteStrong message passed. I wish it goes beyond the blog and get the urgent attention it require.
ReplyDeleteMy boss Effizy, twale!
DeleteYou are going global sis. I'm so proud of u. Thanks for the write up
ReplyDeleteThanks Jayluv!
DeleteProf this is a challenge to us youths. We can't afford to fail. I soberly reflecting on this post. We can't blame anyone if we fail
ReplyDeleteWell articulated, I enjoyed the read. I daresay I belong that demography, beyond nitpicking, we must rise above our parochial interest for a successful rebirth of a New and prosperous Nigeria. May I remind you also that Politics is local much as it is about interest and number as highlighted, there's no way we can achieve our potentials with a particular region beating the drums of war each time things don't go there way nor should the secessionists be allowed to torpedo what is left of Nigeria. Having said that, for Nigeria to develop alongside its yoots* we must entrench the principle of Justice which in itself is the reason ethnic chauvinist latch to cause crisis. How do you describe the disparity in getting admission in fed unitary schools, where the system is structured for the south to scale a cut off mark of 150 and above whereas students in the North secure admission in the same school with 40 or less then when it is time for who gets what, we are forced to believe that the same people whom u struggled ahead of are merit worthy than those of us across the Niger. How do u explain the subservient nature of some regions, where some have seven states and others five and every effort to address the inequality are met with brazen resistance, let's face it, in the face of injustice, patriotism becomes an option. Restructuring Nigeria for prosperity and to meet the demands of the modern day is not a rocket science, it's achievable if we replace the current unitary system with fiscal federalism, let each region develop at its pace. Like Sanusi rightly averred, vested interest is our undoing in Nigeria. Lagos is has one of the biggest IGR in Nigeria, how is that possible? They build good roads and put toll gates where all goods arriving the wharf are asked to pay a certain fee before they can ferry their goods to their depots. In honesty, do you think any Lagos state lawmakers would support any move for Rive Niger to be dredged so that goods can be transported directly to Onitsha or Benue for those in North considering the financial hemorrhage that would cause for Lagos state Gov't. In effect, I am of the point that Nigeria requires restructuring to meet the demands of the youths and usher in a period of prosperity.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your contributions Ike Davies. The issues you have rightly outlined are the reasons this article was written. In the midst of an unjust system, Nigerian youths have to collectively find a way to right the wrongs of the past. These old folks in power won't do it and if we don't do it, things will get worse. This is very very challenging but nothing worthwhile was ever achieved on a platter of gold. I believe when the youths actually believe they can change things, they would have started the journey to national development. Bless your heart
DeleteIt indeed is a rich article. A wake up call for the youths. More grease to your elbow dearie
ReplyDeleteI just downloaded the National Youth Policy on my phone. I will digest it and henceforth, engage political discourse based on that. If I don't take interest in me and my issues, who will? Thank you Ukay.
ReplyDeleteThat's the spirit Stan. The aim of this article is to spur us into action. Well done!
DeleteGreat piece. The recommendations would have been more apt with bullet points or numbering. I would have loved to read a line that says "so here are the 5 things Nigerian youths should do to be engaged in national development". Nevertheless, this is great content and every young person should read this.
ReplyDeleteThank you Presh. I appreciate your taking time out to read this.
DeleteGreatly written sis! You effectively conveyed a great message that is the heart of the solution to curing our nation of its ills and bringing about its rejuvenation and rebirth, which is, the youth of Nigeria. I love that you illustrated that the only criteria doesn't only have to be being young but posessing attributes of the likes of competency and credibility. This is definitely something that all the youth of Nigeria far and near should partake in reading. Very educational and shines an undeniable light on something that a number of us have internalized. Thank you for that. I just pray that our zeal and ambition for change and the betterment of our diaspora would overwhelm the temptations and pitfalls of power and corruption that our predecessors so widely embraced.
ReplyDeleteGod bless you bro for reading. I pray too that we don't lose the zeal for positive impact. I believe that if we judiciously work towards it, Nigerian youths can birth the new Nigeria they crave for
DeleteAmazing writeup. Am-so-inspired...thanks Ukay
ReplyDeleteThanks Steph for reading.
DeleteBeautiful stuff you got here! You know this is just a wake-up call for me, don't know about any other person.
ReplyDeleteArise o "Youths"
Nigeria's call obey
To serve our Fatherland...
Arise o "Youths"
ReplyDeleteNigeria's call obey
To serve our Fatherland... Nice Piece Prof. Jisike
You show great adept in your analysis and it was balanced. I am encouraged seeing that you did not just identify the situation, you addressed it and provided the way forward. There is hope for our future. God bless you Prof.
ReplyDeleteWell said... Good write up.. Youths should wake up,they should let their fire burn. Its tym for us to shove aside been Leaders of Tomorrow, We should think about been leaders of today.. I dont entirely blame d youths, since 80's we sing"... We are d leaders of 2moro", and yet our leaders then are still leading us now.." When an elderly man dont want to keep d hoe,wat do U expect his child to do in d farms,he will find pleasures in eating fruit".. Instead of eating fruit lets create our own hoe and join them in d farm,they will eventually see d reasons to leave d farm... Let d youth wake up,let their fire burn...
ReplyDeleteGreat write up. One thing is certain, what isnt tried wont work. We the youths need to have the mindset that Nigeria is the only country we can call our own, and we need to make sincere effort to make this work the right way. But beyond that, We should take today, the small steps that will enable us become the better leaders of tommorow. Because our future comes one hour, one minute and one second at a time. Again I will say great write up. Cheers.
ReplyDeleteOne thing is to preach a thing. Another is to live it. I can boldly attest that you do both.
ReplyDeleteUkay, the major prohibitive factor for youths in politics is FINANCE. A lot of money change hands in politics, and currently, the odds are skewed in favour of the older generation that have taken over the entire economy and polity, allowing some space only for young stooges that would act as fronts and protect their interests.
Nigerian youths, as I have come to know, are brimming with ideas and energy, but lack opportunities. To become politically relevant, Nigerian youths must first be economically independent and intellectually viable (the latter is a given).
Now, a little confession: I have always wanted to be a card-carrying member of a political party, but I never got to because of the notoriously fluid ideologies in our party system. However, with the gladiators having left the PDP Arena, methinks it's a huge opening for our teeming vibrant youths to fill in the void, hijack the party and create the change we want.
Once I get back to Nigeria again, I must register to join a political party. And we must be in the same party, Ukachi Chukwu... I need you in my media team. Do remind me please... Hahaha