Nigerian Youths Must Fight For Real Change
Posted: 26 Mar 2018 04:55 AM PDT
By Dan Amor
I
am first and foremost a Nigerian child. Then I am a depressed Nigerian
youth. Depression obviously has its several roots: it is the doubtful
protection which comes from not recognizing failure. It is the psychic
burden of exhaustion, and also and very often, that discipline of the
will or the ego which enables one to continue fighting, continue
working, when one’s unadmitted emotion is in panic.
And
panic, it is, I think, which sits as the largest single sentiment in
the heart of the collective members of my own generation. Today, I find
myself in an overwhelmingly urban society, a distinctly urban creature.
Thus, I am adequately informed of current developments in my country. I
am anxious, angry, humorless, suspicious of my own society, apprehensive
with relation to the future of my own country. Quixotic, yet
optimistic, I am on the prowl for the immediate and remote causes of our
national predicament. My nostrils fairly quiver for the stench of some
injustice I can sally forth to condemn. Devoid of any feeling for the
real delineation of function and responsibility, I find all the ills of
my country, real or fancied, pressing on my conscience. Not lacking in
courage, I am prepared, in fact, to charge any number of windmills.
But
in doing so, I am often aggressive and unapologetically critical of my
own society, critical of what I need to live by, critical sometimes of
God’s own choice of creating me a Nigerian. You may wish to call me
names. But do not call me a crank or an eccentric. For, on a very rough
and ready basis, you may well see an eccentric as a man who is a law
unto himself, and a crank as one who, having determined what the law is,
insists on laying it down to others, like some dictator of many a black
nation. What makes me this way? Certain of the causes are external,
temporary and relatively superficial. Certain are religious, ideological
and tribal.
I
do not intend to mention the devastatingly unsettling effects of the
military on the politics, the economy and the overall destiny of my
country, Nigeria . Yet, underlying the very intensity with which I react
to these things, there are obviously far deeper and largely
subconscious sources of discomfort to other members of my forlon
generation as well. But there is a sense in which my anxiety is further
aggravated by the current conspiracy of silence among the youth in my
country. And, of course, there is a disconcerting irony involved here.
Our silence has developed into a commodity market. I am therefore
compelled to ask: can’t we reflect faithfully, but in expanded,
oversized dimensions, like shadows on the wall, the bewilderments and
weaknesses of parents, teachers, politicians, molders of opinion,
leaders of government, captains of industries?
I
come from a nation that is affluent yet the people poor and insecure. I
sense in our rulers (looters), and they feel in themselves, the
material satiety of power without the balancing influence of any inner
security. Imagination, fears, hopes, desires, all these are
overstimulated, and hopelessly stimulated by daily events in my country.
Our nation is under siege, for we have long compounded our crisis
point. Hence, there are no adequate countervailing sources of strength,
confidence and hope for the Nigerian youth. There is no strong and
coherent religious faith, no firm foundation of instruction in the
nature of the individual man, no appreciation for the element of tragedy
that unavoidably constitutes a central component of the Nigerian
predicament, and no understanding for the resulting limitations on the
possibilities for social and political change. The Nigerian youth is a
victim of the appalling shallowness, of the crooked religious,
philosophic and political concepts that pervade his society. Social
evolution demands that the youth have the sociological right and
responsibility to inherit, improve and transmit worth-while
characteristics and values that would enhance and sustain social
development and security so that generation after generation would
aspire to better things. Yet, unfortunately, the present day Nigerian
youth is evidently and sadly over-weighted with short comings and
disabilities- evidences of undesirable heritage.
The
average Nigerian youth of today has not inherited enviable moral
discipline which is the foundation of true citizenship whether we
operate at the family, village, ward, local government, state or
national level. Regrettably, we are all witnesses of the fact that we
are today living in a dangerously threatened country. We are viciously
confronted with a peculiar but violent and rapacious enemy-the old
generation which does not want to grow old-the evil past which wishes to
dominate the present and usurp the future. We are here languishing in a
ready-made and almost imported society of falsehood and propaganda, of
want, hate, insecurity, conflicts, injustices, frustrations, vaulting
and ungodly ambitions, corruption, stupid materialism, political anarchy
and jingoism, wars and advanced cannibalism, man-made catastrophe and
delusion. The youth must sincerely reflect on the background and
heritage with which we are armed to face the patriotic challenges of the
twenty-first century, a role which we do not even understand not to
talk of commitment to it. Much of the savagery enveloping Nigeria today
could be explained in the greed and base conduct inherent in the
characters of our elders. Look at how they insist on being glued on to
power even when they know that age is not on their side! We must fight
for the real change, not the cosmetic sloganeering of a change which has
offered death to the people as a result.
At
this giddy moment when our country seems to have set on a batty course
of self-destruction, Nigerian youths must come together and cut a deal
and to react to this umbrage. We must not only reject any attempt by
those who stole our national patrimony into their private pockets to use
us as pawns to destabilize our country; we must hunt them down anywhere
they are found. We must insist that all the expired war-lords and
looters intent on further wasting the youths in another civil war to
massage their fangled ambitions and maladroit hues are given the Jerry
Rawlings treatment and their looted wealth retrieved. We must stop
allowing ourselves to be used as agents of destruction by these
shameless and sadistic pretenders who have brought us to this state of
arrested development.
There
is a need for the youth to confer hope on this despondent nation to
demonstrate a common political savvy irrespective of our tribe or
religion. Nigerian youths who constitute over 60 per cent of the
electorate must spare the nation the ghoulish stare of insecurity and
civil war in our country by resisting any attempt by the political class
to once more push us into the abyss. Real liberation will come when we
refuse to be manipulated by ambitious self-seeking politicians. In 2019,
all Nigerian youths must unite irrespective of party affiliations and
work hard to change the game of politics in our country. The youth must
take over the Villa and the National Assembly if the country must be
extricated from this maze of social conflicts.
*Mr. Amor, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja
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John Mgbe
Subject:
UGOCHUKWU EJINKEONYE UGOCHUKWU EJINKEONYE Nigerian Youths Must Fight
For Real Change Posted: 26 Mar 2018 04:55 AM PDT By Dan Amor I am first
and foremost a Nigerian child. Then I am a depressed Nigerian youth.
Depression obviously has its several roots: it is the doubtful
protection which comes from not recognizing failure. It is the psychic
burden of exhaustion, and also and very often, that discipline of the
will or the ego which enables one to continue fighting, continue
working, when one’s unadmitted emotion is in panic. And panic, it is, I
think, which sits as the largest single sentiment in the heart of the
collective members of my own generation. Today, I find myself in an
overwhelmingly urban society, a distinctly urban creature. Thus, I am
adequately informed of current developments in my country. I am anxious,
angry, humorless, suspicious of my own society, apprehensive with
relation to the future of my own country. Quixotic, yet optimistic, I am
on the prowl for the immediate and remote causes of our national
predicament. My nostrils fairly quiver for the stench of some injustice I
can sally forth to condemn. Devoid of any feeling for the real
delineation of function and responsibility, I find all the ills of my
country, real or fancied, pressing on my conscience. Not lacking in
courage, I am prepared, in fact, to charge any number of windmills. But
in doing so, I am often aggressive and unapologetically critical of my
own society, critical of what I need to live by, critical sometimes of
God’s own choice of creating me a Nigerian. You may wish to call me
names. But do not call me a crank or an eccentric. For, on a very rough
and ready basis, you may well see an eccentric as a man who is a law
unto himself, and a crank as one who, having determined what the law is,
insists on laying it down to others, like some dictator of many a black
nation. What makes me this way? Certain of the causes are external,
temporary and relatively superficial. Ce
Mar 27 at 10:11 AM
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