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Mr. Governor , apart from the trauma we face waiting for jobs, we are also losing our dignity in the eyes of the society. We have become ‘failures’ in the sight of those who cannot write the letter O.
Let me begin this letter, Mr. Governor , by telling you the three great fears I have writing this letter. The first of my fears is that this letter may never get to your desk. The second is that even if this letter gets to your desk, being a very busy man, you may never find the time to read it. My last fear is that even if you eventually, perhaps by some enigmatic providence, read this letter, you should not discard it as one of the nonsense coming from a youth that has been instigated by the opposition party. I should, however, state that the first fear I mentioned is the greatest of my fears.
Lying quite helpless in the valley of my fears, Mr. Governor, I have decided to write this letter while I can still afford a pencil and a paper.
Having stated my fears, Mr. Governor, let me briskly bring to your attention the plight of unemployed graduates in Kogi State.
We have to print large copies of our CV and unsolicitedly send them out to organizations, where we believe job opportunities exist. We have to wait for text messages; wait for mails; wait for calls; and even wait for whispers. We have to wait, and wait and keep waiting.
Some of us have waited for days, for weeks, for months and even for years; yet we are still waiting. Mr. Governor, waiting has turned some of us into lunatics, because we now read every handbill and bill board we see, thinking they are job adverts.
Mr. Governor, apart from the trauma we face waiting for jobs and job opportunities, we are also losing our dignity in the eyes of the society. We have become ‘failures’ in the sight of those who cannot write the letter O with the base of a cylindrical bottle.
Things are hard for us.We have no access to pleasure. We have been rendered powerless. Mr. Governor, our uneducated neighbours disrespect us every day. Mr. Governor you know what they do? I guess you do not know, so I will tell you. They have turned us into the custodian of keys; wives give us their keys in the morning, instructing us to give their husbands or children in the afternoon or in the evening. They know we are jobless and would stay at home all day. Mr. Governor, as if this is not enough, our neighbours deliberately ask us to list the number of those who visited them while they were away.
Mr. Governor our parents did not send us to school to learn how to keep keys or document visitors; Mr. Governor we need jobs – befitting or unbefitting; we just want something, anything. We are frustrated.
I should tell you, Mr. Governor, that staying at home from sunrise to sunset is like living in hell. We cannot watch television or listen to the radio because PHCN see no reason why electricity should be available during the day when the sun is up. Consequently, Mr. Governor, we roast at home. Heat chases us in the sitting rooms and in the bedrooms; yet we dare not sit in the corridors because passers-by would shake their heads at our sight.
Our aged parents are losing money and resources to feeding us. They have sent us to the universities and polytechnics with the hope that we would one day fend for ourselves, with the hope that we would one day pay their bills, with the hope that we would one day make them proud. Mr. Governor, the truth is that our parents are still feeding us one, two, three, four, five years after graduation.
Before I put my fainting pencil to rest, Mr. Governor, I want to humbly ask some questions. When would the ‘one day’ come? Is it when our parents are already too old to distinguish fish from meat? Is it when they are dead or when we start growing grey hairs?
Mr. Governor, prove to us that APC is a good party. Prove to us that we should vote APC again in 2019. Give us jobs; give us life; give us hope; give us a reason to remain good citizens.
God Bless Kogi State.
– Alfa Tijani, a media aficionado, writes from Kogi State.
E-mail: hon.tijanialfa@gmail.com
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