The greatest conspiracy against Nigerian youths (I)

So the other day my friend Samson Itodo and a few of his friends went and got the Not-Too-Young-To-Rule Bill passed. Passing a bill is an arduous task. You need all the links and connections in the world to get things fast tracked. But they got it done. Kudos to the team. Then it occurred to young Nigerians that the euphoria will last for only a while. The political party that signed the bill and went to town boasting about how they’ve opened the political space to the youths of Nigeria, also demanded the most shocking amounts of monies from aspirants on their platform in a way that mocked the same youths, most of which realized that having obtained the ‘right to rule’, what they didn’t have was money in their pockets or bank accounts. They had been played. The youths of Nigeria had been used to open the route to builders of dynasties and feudalists who needed the road widened for their sons and daughters to get on the political gravy train – since they had stolen enough money to guarantee that Nigeria remains a slave and master society; where they and their children and grandchildren will be the masters and the youths of today – and their offsprings – will remain the slaves.

I always opined to the youths that what they should be fighting for is a Not-Too-Young-To-Get-A-Good-Job-And-Be-Useful-To-Myself-My Family-And-My-Society Bill. The youths of Nigeria will have to learn priority, and also how not to rush out on fleeting victories when real issues are yet unsolved. Indeed immediately after the NTYTR Bill was passed, some youths gathered and were pushing for Itodo’s group to get them an ‘Independent Candidacy’ Bill. I was livid with some of them for permanently being in the begging mode. The youths of Nigeria represent the largest demographic here. Why are they always begging the political establishment for one thing or another? Why don’t we also learn to use what we have on hand to maximum effect before shifting the goalpost as if we were spoilt children looking for newer toys to play with?  Will there come a day when we will have everything we desire? I wondered if our youths knew the meaning of independent candidacy and the criteria they will have to fulfil (monetarily and logistically) in order to qualify. In the USA, the last major candidate that ran as Independent for the seat of the President was Billionaire Ross Perot in 1992. Collecting signatures alone costs a fortune as you need volunteers all over the nation. However, independent candidature is good at the very local levels where you can do legwork to fulfil the requirements. We have to worry though, about the penchant for people to forge things. In the USA they have an elaborate way of subjecting every claim to serious scrutiny. Let’s move on.

So it’s certain that the youth of Nigeria will not be granted political power on a platter, contrary to their desires. But that is not the biggest fraud being played on the Nigerian youth. Our youths should seek first the kingdom of financial independence before seeking political power. They should not seek political power in order to become financially comfortable. That route is what has led to all the criminality in our land today. In my sojourn in politics, I have seen so many examples of youths who are not ready to do anything else – straight from school – than politics. It is a sad commentary.  This phenomenon is bigger in some parts of the country than others, but it is now spreading like wildfire as careers are going bust due to national economic mismanagement.  Only politics can bring the untold wealth with which our youths are daily being enticed. Nothing will destroy this country faster than this path we have chosen.

I say that the biggest conspiracy against the youths of Nigeria is the refusal of the political elders to allow the youths of this country be part of the solutions to our problems as a nation. It is evident that these people have totally run out of ideas and are busy flailing all over the place. But they have cornered the little wealth that their limited imagination has been able to generate. The space is constricted. The youths may be struggling to get entrepreneurship going but failures are far more than successes, and our entrepreneurship hardly creates anything but is full of salesmen for the ideas generated by the youths of other countries. Nigeria’s leaders have ensured that the youths of this country are unemployed and unempowered. They have reduced the youths to beggars for crumbs, and of late, have ensured that the youths are scrambling for political power, just to stay relevant and get access to the commonwealth too. In this way, they have instituted a vicious cycle of corruption. For this desperate political system they have foisted on us all, can only lead to the bleeding to death of Nigeria. When young people who should be gainfully employed are left to their own devices, what they start to lose is dignity. I am also saying that the mad rush to entrepreneurship is misguided because as we can verify, and as I have also pushed on these pages, what we need to first establish in this country is to ensure a minimum acceptable standard of living for our people wherever they may live. And if we try to do that, we will realize that public resources are not meant for the wanton enjoyment of a few feudal lords, but to maintain a sane society. We will then see that we haven’t started to have a public sector that delivers public goods all over Nigeria. This must be done.

Someone shared a post from a Nigerian living in the UK today, who compared London and Lagos in terms of medical facilities and infrastructure. Two teaching hospitals in Lagos serving 21million people, 14 in London alone, serving 9million people.  Whereas he made a point about medical workers being overworked in Nigeria, what I saw was how we have under-invested in the wellbeing of our own people. What I saw was how President Buhari and his cohorts jump into the next plane to treat themselves in the same London, using monies that should have been invested in building more hospitals here, training and employing more health workers, and paying them better. What I saw in stark relief, was how the UK National Health Service (NHS) employs 1.7million people and is the largest employer there, even as the public sector employs 21% of UK’s entire workforce, while our public sector (federal, state and local), only employ 3% or less, of our workforce, and keep them at so-called ‘secretariats’ to be pushing evil files of corruption which further gut the country.

Till next week