30/07/2019
Redeeming the Nigerian State: Imperatives for the Youth
By Comrade Japhet Philip
Let us begin to dispense with the conception that the project called Nigeria is faced with a plethora of issues at the moment. Endemic youth unemployment (currently at 25.20%), insecurity, economic stagnation, poverty, illiteracy and disease, avarice, nepotism and the culture of impunity amongst character stricken and ideologically bereft leaders, impoverished, uninformed and complacent followership, corruption, exclusion, social injustice and all other characteristics of a failed state have become common place in this once economically, socially and politically viable nation. From the foregoing, there is no gainsaying the fact that there is indeed danger ahead of us, hence the need for redemption if we must tame the deficit and restore our dear country from the current social, economic and political morass, to the path of recovery, growth, stability and shared prosperity.
Permit me to make an attempt to diagnose, analyze and to do a prognosis of the problem with Nigeria, doing so i strongly believe will help us understand the negative narratives bedeviling us as a people and to focus on finding workable solutions to those myriad of issues with a view to salvaging our country from imminent collapse, a task that must be done now. So i ask; where did we go wrong in our journey to nationhood? What must we do to get to the promise land? A land where all and sundry will be free from fear and terror, free from hunger, illiteracy, poverty and disease, where justice and truth shall prevail.
Suffice to say that there are several schools of thought as to why we have found ourselves in the current abyss; some say that it is the failure of leadership as Prof Chinua Achebe of blessed memory would succinctly capture in his book titled: The Trouble with Nigeria, others posit that religion and ethnicity are the problem, to some it is the hydra-headed corruption that has regrettably become the hallmark of our governance and national life amongst many. While those different opinions and positions about our challenges are cogent and true, I make bold to add that chunk of the problem lie with us the followership, majority of our country men and women are complacent when it comes to issues of national development. We suffer not only because our leaders lack discipline and are intellectually poor, but also because we have thrown our values to the winds, we have placed much premium on things that divide us rather than things that unite us; above all, we have failed as a people to hold our leaders accountable and in this instance the youths who account for the larger percentage of state population and in whose hands the future rests are to a greater extent responsible.
Throughout the course of history, successful nations have had to rely on leaders with discipline, vision, intelligence, character and charisma to make their societies work. Genghis Khan the Mongoloid leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican, Lee kuan Yew of Singapore, Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, Alexander the Great, the Greek, Patrice Lumumba of DR Congo, the highly revered Ottoman emperor, Suleiman the magnificent, Charles de Gaulle, Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela amongst many all showed and applied those attributes of greatness and vision in building their nations, today their influence in world history cannot be diminished. Albeit Nigeria have had its own fair share of such great leaders in the persons of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Sunday Awoniyi amongst others, their visions and ideologies were never allowed to thrive, our inability to sustain the legacies of those heroes past marked the beginning of our troubles and i hope we will be sober enough to reflect on this moving forward.
From the foregoing, it is my considered opinion that over the years, the quality of leadership and by implication followership have continued to dwindle, this for me is a pointer to the current state of our nation, an authentication of the idea that no society can rise above the level of its leaders.
Our major trouble on the journey to nationhood in my view began with the attempted coup de etat of January 15, 1966 as staged by some dissident junior army officers mainly from the Eastern Region, that not only saw to the assassination of the federal prime minister and some key northern and southwestern political and military leaders but also led to the collapse of the First Republic and sowed the seed of discord, nepotism, retrogression and socio-political instability in Nigeria. The countercoup and its attendant civil war which lasted from 1967 to 1970 mainly to avert the secession of ‘’Biafra’’ was traumatic and it has proved to be the major trauma in Nigerian history, this profoundly impacted the military and by extension the civilian culture of Nigeria. These events helped to fan the embers of ethnic bigotry and deeply entrenched the challenge of national unity, Alas! Our failure to address the issues that led to the war and to define the basis of our existence as a people after the needless war are still bedeviling our national life, the recurring agitations for ‘’secession’’ and ‘’restructuring’’ strongly suggests that the end of those inherent problems associated with perceived feelings of marginalization and exclusion from active participation in governance which are deeply rooted along ethnic, religious and regional lines is not yet in sight.
Our challenge worsened in the 1980s when petroleum revenues began pouring in the face of half-baked financial institutions and lax legal institutions, a situation that facilitated the rapid development of high-level cultures of corruption when state governors could shape budget and ‘’off-budget’’ expenditures to their liking and could also gain access to international financial loans with little or no accountability. This paved way for the entrenchment of a culture of money-bag politics and leadership became the entitlement of the rich and strong; of people who had no agenda for their country but rather see leadership as an opportunity to feather their nests. And up until this moment, we are still faced with same challenge and must liberate our people from it.
Going by our demographics, the youths constitute the larger portion of our population and so have a central role to play in the crusade for a better Nigeria.
As young Nigerians, Our preoccupation now should be to redeem our once great country where ordinary citizens can live in freedom, peace and security, where their humanity more than their religion will be the basis for their acceptance, where citizens will be judged by the content of their character and not their ethnic extraction, region or political affiliation.
To do this, I will like to suggest the following actions on our parts as young Nigerian citizens.
1. RE-ORIENT YOUR VALUES
The moral standard of behavior in every society is what defines it. There exist a nexus between the moral conduct of individuals, families, communities and institutions in a given society and how well that society works. We cannot build and sustain a prosperous nation without the practical application of values such as honesty, justice, good faith, hard work, love, integrity, transparency, accountability and respect for the dignity of lives. Our values as a nation has been eroded and we need to re-orient. Until there is a moral restructuring of our minds as a people we will continue to chase shadows. The Nigerian youth must get it right morally, for us to achieve genuine change we must break away from corruption, greed, impunity, injustice and all other forms of immoral conduct.
2. SEEK KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND WISDOM
Knowledge is power and its application is wisdom. No individual or nation can prosper in life without knowledge. Knowledge is a powerful factor that empower people achieve great results and a society or community that is devoid of knowledge will always be backward and will wallow in perpetual poverty. It is the application of knowledge that has led man to the path of progress. To redeem our nation from its present state, we must seek knowledge, skills and have the right attitude to nation building. Readers are leaders!
3. RE-ORIENT YOUR IDENTITY
As a Nigerian youth you must ask yourself the question WHO AM I? Many a youth in Nigeria bear stronger allegiance to their ethnic, religious, regional and political affiliations rather than to the state and this is a RED FLAG! We must deliberately de-emphasize things that divide us and uphold those things that unite us. We must see ourselves as Nigerians rather than Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba, Christians or Muslims, Northerners or Southerners, members of APC, PDP etc. We must do away with our divides and work together in unison with a common identity as Nigerian youth.
4. UTILIZE THE POWER OF ASSOCIATION
The essence of humanity is solidarity. The Nigerian youths must start a movement. We need to network and build strong alliances if we must reposition our country to the path of progress and liberate our people from oppression. No man is an island, no man succeeds alone. Collective wisdom works better than individual one. An injury to one is an injury to all. We must break away from the Someone Else’s Problem (SEP) syndrome and work together for the common good. Start a movement NOW!
5. GET INVOLVED
Active and meaningful participation in governance is a must do for the Nigerian youth. We must begin to tell truth to power by openly challenging bad government policies and programs and demand accountability and transparency from our leaders. We must begin to challenge strong individuals and strive to build strong institutions. We must join and build political parties that are driven by ideologies rather than penchant for self- preservation and aggrandizement. Above all, the Nigerian youth must break away from being a tool in the hands of corrupt and self-serving politicians and like their counterparts in civilized climes run for office and assume the role of leadership.
CONCLUSION
‘’This is the most important and crucial periods of your lives, for what you do now and what you decide now at this age may well determine which way your life shall go. And the question is whether you have a proper, a solid and a sound blueprint. And I want to suggest some of the things that should be in your life’s blueprint. Number one in your life’s blueprint should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your own worth and your own somebodiness, don’t allow anybody to make you feel that you are nobody. Always feel that you count, always feel that you have worth and always feel that your life has ultimate significance’’ Martin Luther King Jr
Japhet Philip, a social justice activist, politician and public affairs analyst writes from Jos and can be reached at:
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