Introduction.
The contemporary youths in Nigeria today are subjected to bleak and frustrating future by our political system and the shameless actors of which the youths themselves are key actors. In recent past, youths were heads of state, ministers, commissioners, senators, and members of House of Representatives and various houses of assembly.
Personalities like General Yakubu Gowon, Col. Bamigboye, General Muritala Mohammed, etc. were youths that benefited from our political system. Youths were then preoccupied with academic pursuits. Excellence was hallmark. Youths valued political ideologies and no amount of money could buy the conscience of the youths.
Today, the youths are in total slavery and have no hope for the future. In this narrative, I will expose ways youths themselves have driven their future to oblivion, alongside the major contributions of the aged recycled politicians. Youths are flagrantly neglected in appointment to viable and meaningful positions of authority.
Instead, fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers are regularly recycling themselves to positions of authority while the youths are busy hailing and patronizing them. Instead of allowing youths to occupy vantage positions, they are only allowed to contest for councillorship, personal assistant, and junior ranking positions. The negative result on youths is that these positions damage them for life. A youth who was never employed and given a councillorship position to enjoy #300000 per month can never take conventional jobs of #35000 again. This result to many young politicians today begging for crumbs and peanuts to survive after leaving office. Most of the properties that they acquired during their period in office are later sold for survival after leaving office.
Also, youths are used as thugs and bodyguards by politicians. They protect their own children in oversea universities but use the vulnerable ones at home for devilish activities. After graduation, they secure viable empowering positions for their own children in NNPC, BANKS, CBN, CUSTOMS, etc. These politicians are directly planting their children as lords over our vulnerable youths in the nearest future.
As a result of this abuse of youths, many are maimed, killed and imprisoned because of thuggery. Funny enough, our youths are happy doing it after they are given peanuts.
Youths are instruments of attack and negative political propaganda in the hands of politicians. They use them to protest irrelevant circumstances but these youths will not protest closure of schools and universities. They embrace corrupt politicians by way of hailing and sycophantically praise singing nonperformance and bad leadership. This trend is worrisome.
Our youths today are paid to assassinate both physically and morally. A nonentity can be used to bring down the governor of a state or a distinguished senator. Morality has been thrown into dustbin because of peanuts. Nigerian politicians use our youths for rituals. Many have been killed through food sacrifice because they love cheap or free food thereby rendering them useless forever unaware. They use our boys to track down and kidnap fellow youths to make sacrifices and rituals for their political interest or money rituals.
It is good to know that despite these attitudes of our youths, there are few that are hardworking and focused. These set of people have set aside partisan politics for professional actualization.
Recommendations
In order to reduce the rate at which youths are abused or abuse themselves, these facts must be adhered to. The youths must be reoriented politically. This can be inculcated into the school curriculum.
The urge for quick wealth acquisition must be discouraged. A primary school pupil wants to ride Lexus jeep. They also think and know that the easiest way to achieve this is through politics. After graduation, they join politics to contest as councilors.
Youths must be educated to face their studies first, and then get good jobs before venturing into politics. Genuine jobs that will make them start from entry grade levels to retirement. This will enable them to value labour and its benefits against the political appointments that will earn them fat salaries and end up in few years thereby making them unemployed and become nuisance for life.
Political parties and INEC must be mandated to reduce registration fees for candidates contesting for political offices like president, governors, senators, House of Representatives which are monopolistically enjoyed by the few rich corrupt elders of Nigeria because they are rich. This will allow youths to afford the means of contesting for offices that will make them useful for themselves and the entire nation thereby fulfilling the yearning of making them the aspired future leaders.
Parents must also play a key role in monitoring their children especially those in higher institutions of learning. Most of these delinquents are into cultism and secret societies. They easily become instruments of evil for the politicians to attack opponents or assassination. Parents must inculcate respect for hard work into the minds of their children.
Youths minds must be discouraged from quick wealth.
Finally, youths must be exposed to political education that will make them respect political ideologies that will promote the welfare of an ordinary citizen. In the contemporary politics, ideology has been thrown into dustbin and that is one of the reasons why those at the elms of affairs today have no focus while in office. This will also enable the youths to reject money for votes. The future of this country is in the hands of the youths. And the nature of the present youths will determine the future of this country.
God bless Nigeria.
– Hon. Elesho Joseph
