When the Youth Department of my Church decided to put together a programme/seminar on the 29th of May 2010 marking Nigeria’s “Democracy day”, it was more than a welcome idea for me to be part of it and believe me, I enjoyed myself and I make bold to say I have never learnt so much in one day about my country and what we are supposed to do to birth a new NIGERIA………..
The programme tagged “THE ROLE OF YOUTHS IN THE NEW NIGERIA” had speakers like Mr. Jimi Agbaje, the DPA Governorship Candidate for Lagos State in the last Gubernatorial Election, Dr.Joe-Okei Odumakin, the Convener, Campaign for Democracy and Dr. Tunde Bakare, Pastor of Latter Rain Assembly. I will try to be very brief and share with you few things I learnt from these three dynamic persons. Pardon me if along the line I sound as if those words were coming from me, they are really not but they are coming from my fingers and from inside of me.
Shocked was an understatement when Jimi Agbaje was reeling out statistics of many things in my dear Country. But the ones that struck me and I remember vividly was the fact that poverty rate in Nigeria in 54% which translates to about 75 million people and these people live on less than 1 dollar a day………… Incredible……..!!! Life expectancy in Nigeria is 42 years for male and 48 years for female…………. I have lived the better years of my life????.....!!! We have approximately 80 million Youth in Nigeria and out of these number, 64 million are unemployed, 1.6 million are underemployed which means they are just working for the sake of having somewhere to wake up and head to and 4.5 million Youth enter the labour market every year for the non-existent jobs….. We are in trouble….!!!!!!! He went on to tell us what we can do to birth a NEW NIGERIA as Youths of this great country. First is choosing our role models carefully. Who do you want to be like? The Iboris of this world or the Obamas of this world? I was dumbfounded when he reeled out Nigerians who we see as “Big” men and women and how much EFCC is probing them for and the least was 1.2billion of my Nigerian Naira and the highest was 227 billion…..!!!! I asked myself, Did they actually get all these money from this land? Well, YES………!!!
But what I really took home and will share here is what Pastor Tunde Bakare shared with us, I will try and share them like my own words but believe me I learnt them from him.
In life, we always envy other people, other countries, other culture and everything that belongs to others. The grass is always looking good at the other side, we always say some people are at more advantage than we are, but the truth is there is what is called “PRINCIPLE OF EQUIVALENT ADVANTAGE” it posits “Every problem that has a potential of drawing you back also has a potential of moving you forward” you may want to relate with this or not but I want you to know that every possibility has difficulties and every difficulty has possibility, the determining factor of who of who you become is not the circumstances of your birth, the colour of your skin, the village or hamlet you come from, the school you attended or the people who gave birth to you, but it is the thought you keep, the ones you meditate on and the size of the hope you carry that will be determine who you will become. I have seen people who attended the best schools in the world and the best most of them have become is an employee in a very nice and normal organization, taking home their normal take-home pay, marry a normal spouse, have normal children, live in a normal house, grow old in a normal way, die a normal death, have a normal burial and have a 3x5 column obituary in a normal Newspaper…..! end of story……!!!! But I think anyone who is a new breed who wants to affect his generation must not wish for that kind of life, I personally do not want to live the kind of life just painted above.
In every society, especially among the youth we have basically 4 types of people and if you are a youth, you must fall into one category here. They are:
THE OVER-PAMPERED, WITH THE ENTITLEMENTS MENTALITY. These group of people always believe that they must have other people doing things for them, whether their parents, their society or their country. They are always waiting for inheritance and never say thank you for people who bless them with anything simply because they think they deserve more at all times, they never value anything and they are never contented. Now, do not get me wrong, I am not just referring to some rich kids here, in fairness to them some of them are very hardworking and will work for every penny they earn but in reality so many of the rich kids belong to this group and others simply follow them always demanding for what could be done for them and not what they can do for others.
THE DESPERADOES. This group of people are typical strugglers, they constantly want to be like the over pampered, they are simply envious of them so they do anything and everything to get whatever it is they think someone or some people somewhere is owing them, they are the kind of people that believe money can do anything will do anything for money, they are always in haste to meet up with the current trend and just live large at the expense of anybody and everybody, they are yahoo boys and girls, they are girls who use what they have (body) to get what they want, they are the fraudsters and cheats in every sphere of our national life, they are the young generation of politicians who came from ghettoes and loot our treasury blind to preserve their 14th unborn generation. These people have zeal without the right knowledge, they do just about anything without thinking about anyone but themselves, they are people who don’t even think about the consequences of their actions, the effect it is going to have on the society at large, they constantly look on the other side and want to check out as soon as possible, they queue in front of every embassy including that one of Siberia, they travelled across Africa via the Sahara desert just to get to Spain. They just want to live large……AT ALL COST!
THE SPECTATORS. These people are totally disconnected from what is happening around them, they are just there reading the papers, the magazines, watching TV and never do anything about what they hear or see. It is often said “Those who spend too much time watching TV never appear on it”. They never participate. They cheer and condemn very loudly from the sidelines or the stands and never lend a hand, a voice or an opinion ever in their lifetime. English premiership comes to mind as a good example in this area, so many of us watch and will give anything away just to see “our” darling team play. But while some are making it happen on the pitch, some in the boardroom, some in the news room making money from talking football and others on the internet and through so many avenues and all what some of us do is just to watch…….!!!! We can do better than that concerning our National issues. We have to be fired up, put our hands on the plough and willing to go hungry for what we believe in.
THE STAKEHOLDERS. These set of people might be few, their voice might be muffled, they might be busted, bruised and battered at every opportunity but when they arise, they make a difference, they were the Martin Luther King Jnr of this world, the Malcom x of this world, the Ghandi of this world, the Keyamos of our time, the Femi Falanas, Tunde Bakares and so many of them I can’t mention here. They see themselves as units who make the whole. They don’t sit down and just rant about everything, they get in the kitchen and do it right, they go out there and vote right, they defend their votes with everything they have, they make their votes count, they raise their voice against tyranny and oppression in khaki or Agbada and Babariga. So, which group do you belong? The Over-pampered? The desperadoes? The Spectators? or The stakeholders? It is time to rise, take our national destinies in our own hands, determine our fate, it is time to belong to the new breed without greed!!
