A Paper Presentation by Rt. Hon Umar Ahmed Imam, member representing Lokoja I State Constituency, Kogi State House Of Assembly at The Kogi West Youth Dialogue Held an Saturday November 25, 2017 At Idrinana Hotel, Lokoja.
Courtesies.
The term,“Youth”, has been used, either loosely or relatively, over a long period oftime. Some define itas anyone who is crossing from the age of dependency to independence. The Oxford Dictionary defines“youth” as the period between childhood and adult age. In Cambridge Dictionary, however, it is the period of your life when you are young, or the state of being young. In the meantime, the United Nations, for statistical purposes, defines youth as those persons between the age of fifteen and twenty four(15 – 24)years, without prejudice to other definitions by the Member States.
It is, therefore, interesting to note that in Nigeria,most people between the ages of 18 and 45 are usually considered as youth. Sometimes, even those between the ages of 45 and 50 find it convenient to refer to themselves as youth to them youthfulness is in the heart. Whatever age bracket that is acceptable; this paper is to dwell specifically on the Hurdles before Kogi West Youth in Political Leadership.
First and foremost, we have to grasp the true meaning of “leadership”, and then situate it within our scope of discourse. It is generally agreed that leadership is the position of being the leader of an organization, state, country, etc. At any level, a leader must be someone chosen or elected to lead the people or organization in attaining certain goals, aspirations and prosperity.
Irrespective of age, there are identified qualities that a good leader must possess. Great leaders in history had succeeded largely because they possessed those qualities. Many of them, as we would see later, are within our agreed age scope of youth. According to leadership expert:
The character, actions and thoughts of a leader, good or bad, permeate an organization. Whether they lead a company or country, history’s best leaders understood the importance of providing the motivation and direction to achieve larger goals. Poor leaders loose the faith and trust of the people they lead while great leaders seem to lead without efforts.
In other words, to aspire for political offices, the youth must learn from the failings of the old order and begin to prepare to provide the able leadership that would translate to good governance. And this is where I think the Nigerian youth need to payserious attention. There has been raging debates about the old order not being prepared to quit the stage in spite of their failings in providing good governance and in putting the country on the path of growth and positive development. The youth probably need to be reminded that the old politicians and leaders are indeed the product of the young politicians of the post-independence as well as those who struggled to end military rule. They were young politicians then and have continued to be relevant in today’s politics.
The Nigerian youth or young politicians need to brace up and be courageous to seek political relevance through active participation in politics. Many of the prominent Nigerian politicians at independence were largely youthful. They participated actively at formation stage and took membership of the early political parties in Nigeria. A good number of them were appointed either as Ministers or Ambassadors. For instance, the late Alhaji Maitama Sule was Oil Minister at the age of 29; Richard Akinjide, Minister of Education at 32; late Mathew Mbu was a Minister at the age of 25 and Nigeria High Commissioner to the United Kingdom at 26; Alhaji Shehu Shagari was a Federal Legislator at the age of 30 and a Minister at the age of 35. And the list is inexhaustible.
Contemporary politicians, particularly youth, are not prepared to bid their time through adequate training and mentorship in the game of politics. It is expedient to be in politics with skills, career experience and political philosophy to inform one’s political association. Many are, however,parading themselves as politicians without the desired training and political skills in party activities. Recently, on 22nd November 2017, the Vice President Federal Republic of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo in a political gathering, advised the Nigerian youth to join political parties and bring about the transformation they needed instead of blaming politicians of bad-governance. He, however, told the youth not to expect becoming the president of Nigeria immediately they join the politics because it does not work that way. It requires gradual process which implies that the green horn in politics must undergo mentoring.
Our youth must come to terms with the reality, that politics and political leadership are not tea party. Leadership requires hard work. Our youth must show knowledge and character to convince the people that you have come of age; that their destiny is secured with you; that you are worthy of their trust and that you are prepared to make sacrifices. The erroneous belief that the conspiracy of the elite has been the only encumbrance to youth ascension to political power is baseless. Nowhere in the world, not even in America and Europe, would you have a situation where the old politicians wittingly quit the stage for the new order; power is taken not given, but must be with adequate preparation in skills and knowledge. It has always been an admixture of the old and the young. As far as democracy is concerned, it is always about the people and those chosen or elected to lead the people, irrespective of age or sex. For example, in the American political history, John F. Kennedy was the youngest elected American President at the age of 43 years. Like Ronald Reagan before him, Donald Trump was elected in 2016 at the age of 70, making him the oldest elected President of the United States of America. In France, Emmanuel Macron was recently voted President at the age of 39, after the ouster of Francois Hollande who was 63 years old. Austria has just elected their new leader, Sebastian Kurz, at the age of 31, making him the world’s youngest leader. These leaders have one thing in common visionary and selfless service.
When the people desire a change in leadership, they elect among those vying for the position and whom they believe possess those qualities and strong character to deliver, those they believe can take them to the desired destination.In the words of Henry Kissinger:
The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.
And in the statement of Rosalyn Carter, former American First Lady:
A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they donot necessarily want to go, but ought to be.
In a September 2nd, 2017 Edition of This Day Newspaper article titled: The Challenges Ahead of Nigerian Youth, Dele Momodu of Ovation Magazine said:
Unless Nigerian Youth purge themselves of the arrogance associated with the social media, the journey of liberation may be much longer than we think or know. We must all pay our dues before we can begin to flex muscles of greatness and apotheosis. There are no shortcuts to these things. Our youth must read and learn the history of revolutions. No matter how commonly available internet data has become…every one of us must still go through the rudiments of political science. And it is not as simple as it seems.(The emphasis is mine.)
At a recent event commemorating the Democracy Day at Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo State, the Students Union Government (SUG) invited Hon. (Dr.) Joseph Adelaja to deliver a paper, and he has this to say:
There is need for unity of purpose among the youth if the agitation for taking over is taken seriously. If youth that constitute about 70% of Nigeria’s population can build a viable and formidable structure, it won’t take a year to democratically dismantle the old order.
And that:
Politics transcends sermonizing and countless speeches and writings on the pages of Newspapers as well as agitations in the media. Politics is a practical game that starts from making yourself relevant in your Streets, Units, Wards and Local Governments. It is about building structures, not talking.
Unfortunately, against these advices, the youth dissipate valuable time and energy ranting and insulting elected officials on social media platforms. Many of them are champions and political leaders only on social media. Rather than critically and constructively engaging the old politicians by displaying those qualities and convincing the people to seek viable alternatives in the youth, they most often dwell on very hollow and mundane issues that create negative impressions to the general public that the youth are not yet matured for public office. They often attack one another on social media using obscene languages and sometimes criminalize one another.
From the foregoing, I have deliberately broadened the scope of this paper beyond the youth of Kogi West and attempted to give an overview of the challenges before the youth in general and in attaining political leadership in Nigeria. However, this discourse has highlighted a number of challenges or hurdles that the youth need to grapple with, in summary and in concluding this paper, are:
Education
The first challenge is for the youth to acquire quality and functional education even though the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria stipulates a minimum qualification of Secondary School Certificate of Education (SSCE) for an election into offices.The youth must strive to update their knowledge through constant reading and research. They should endeavour to be educated up to the University or such tertiary education level.
The youth should constantly read books on the biographies of great leaders and revolutionaries. They will draw inspirations, leadership skills and characters that would eventually stand them out as well as prepare them for future political leadership. It is lack of education that turned many youth to political thugs and ready tools in the hands of politicians who desire to gain relevance.
Lack of Capacity
This is closely associated with lack of education. Leadership capacity entails that you acquire the right education, trainings, skills, mentorship and gradual acceptance in leadership process. Of course, you equally need fund; however, everything that stands you out as the man for the job is what shows capacity.
Character
You must be of strong character. Choose political role models that inspire you to greatness. Be of high moral rectitude. Eschew everything evil and imbibe morality. Be honest, truthful, trustworthy and accessible. These are very essential in shaping the character of a great leader.
Finance/Poverty
One huge hurdle facing the youth in politics is lack of financial capability to bankroll electioneering campaigns and election. It is not unusual to find a very good and qualified youth with great capacity for leadership to loose election to a relatively less qualified individual because of money. It is one huge hurdle militating against the youth’s political prosperity.
It is the reason why you often find a very educated youth with great capacity for good leadership but continues to remain a Party Youth Leader. Yet, others take to political thuggery. The youth must be engaged in self-employed ventures or be employed to achieve financial power.
Join and Participate in Party Political Activities
As I argued earlier, the youth desiring political leadership are not prepared to bid their time through patience and painstaking training and mentorship. Some young politicians would want to join a political party, run for and win an election, all in the same year. It is an inevitable recipe for failure and self-destruct.
Lack of Unity and Structure
It is imperative for the youth to be united in their political struggle. There is serious mistrust and mutual antagonism among the youth, leading to unhealthy rivalry and competition. Greed, selfish interest, inordinate ambitions have continued to divide the youth sharply.
How do you retire the old order when there is no cohesion and unity among yourselves? It is not that the old politicians are free of those things we considered their failings, but these failings are not as pronounced. They easily deal with them giving their experiences.
Conclusively
Youth in Kogi West are particularly very smart, educated and resourceful. The identified hurdles can be surmounted seamlessly if they collaborate and prepare to take the centre stage. Political leadership can only be attained through the democratic process. Therefore, our youth should register with viable political parties and play the game by the rules. It is highly utopian to expect that the old order can be easily supplanted through social media engagements or negotiation. Politics is a serious business. It entails adequate planning, understanding the ethos and building a strong political structure. You need to be courageous and focused.
Be encouraged to transform your dreams and visions into reality. You have got all the qualifications to run for any office irrespective of young age.Those who dare, win.The youth must begin to set political agenda that would translate their dreams and visions to reality. There is no doubt that youth have displayed political fecundity within the Nigerian political trajectory. However, they need to play politics beyond past time and passivity.
In chapter 2 page 27 of his book titled:’Antidotes of corruption’, Senator Dino Melaye said:
I fought my way determinedly through the elections for a place as a Member of the House of Representatives…. I felt that politics was my calling and was quite happy to represent my people…. They elected me despite the fact that I was so young at the time and not from the type of background that was traditionally accepted to aspire to that sort of political office.
On this note, I conclude with a quote from Benjamin Disraeli:
We live in age when to be young and to be different can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the future are represented by suffering millions; and the youth of a Nation are the trustees of prosperity.
Thank you.
