The Guardian newspapers make a point of canvassing the views of Nigerian children to mark Children’s Day on May 27 every year. I make it a point to read their views or verdicts on the country and its leaders. The words of our children might not be the words of wisdom but their views on the wisdom of the elders do not give much credit to the wisdom of the elders.
Each year in the Guardian newspaper poll, different children express virtually identical views. As I went through their views in the Guardian of Sunday, May 27, I was struck by how much we take our children for granted. And how much they quietly resent it. Let me put it this way: our children have ears – and they hear; they have eyes – and they see. In a summary of their views, the newspaper reported that the children “made a passionate appeal to governments at all levels to create enabling environment to aid their growth, facilitate their wellbeing and prepare them for the task of nation-building.”
A nation’s biggest moral duty to its future is to create an environment conducive to their potential growth. Without such an environment, human, political and business growth is impossible. An enabling environment here means equal opportunities for personal growth for our children and young people. Nigeria is increasingly polarised into two countries – one, for the children of the rich and the privileged and the other, a country of the poor and the deprived. It is no way to build a nation united by a common destiny.
Education, for instance, must be within the reach of all children. Job opportunities must be the right of all young people. Peace must be the foundation of our upward movement. Is it not wonderful that our children recognise that the absence of an enabling environment is detrimental to their future?
Their dreams are not childish or outlandish or unrealistic. I usually find their expectations from the country and its leaders sober and even realistic. They are not afraid of speaking their minds about their disappointment with the country and its leaders. But unlike the elders, they do not despair and do not believe that our broken country cannot be put back together.
But they know only too well that they are not yet living in the country of their dreams. We, the elders, have not been quite responsible in trying to build that future, that golden future that belongs to them. You see, our children are not ignorant. They are fully informed about what is going on in the country. They know that despite the posturing of the redoubtable politicians to the contrary, all is not well with our country. They know that Nigeria, perhaps the most endowed African country blessed with enviable human and natural resources, is holding the candle to other less fortunate but determined and focused African countries.
It makes them sad, as indeed, it should. Because they can see that the failure of the elders to rise up to the critical challenges of building an egalitarian country in which, to borrow the immortal words of the late redoubtable American civil rights warrior, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, the contents of our minds and the contents of our brains would trump our tribes and religious faith, our country is hobbled, chained by indifference and cynicism, unable to soar like the eagle it is supposed to be.
Our children can see that the country is increasingly more divided now than ever before. And this, despite the fatuous sermons on unity from every hill and dale in the country by the important people in our midst whose right to be listened to is a given. They know that the wanton killings of innocent fellow Nigerians by armed robbers, kidnappers, bandits, Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen and the apparent helplessness of the Nigerian state, takes something fundamental away from the future of the country they dream of. I am sure they are worried stiff that the banner now thoroughly stained with the blood of the innocent, would be be passed unto them, unwashed.
But here is what really touched me. According to the newspaper the children said they were “deeply worried by the brazen corruption, gross absence of role models ..” I, too, am deeply worried about the effect of corruption on our children. Our children read the newspapers and watch television news daily. They can see that our news media are filled daily with stories of allegations of corruption and the cynical theft of the wealth of the nation by our public men and women who are the legal and moral custodians of our common wealth. They see that all around them are venal men and women who care less about being good examples to their own children and other young people in their relentless and mindless pursuit of personal wealth for its own sake.
They can see that corruption has soiled everything in the country. As young as they are, they are aware that the anti-corruption war in the country is the longest-running war in the history of wars, ancient and modern. They know that in the midst of the war, corruption waxes stronger. I am sure they too are baffled by the irony of it all.
Corrupt men and women cannot serve as role models for our children. They are unattractive as role models. Our children know they cannot turn to their teachers because they know that venality has corroded professional and moral responsibilities among not a few of them in the citadels of learning. Teachers who give marks for sex cannot be role models.
Our children know they cannot turn to our so-called men and women of God because they are no longer sure who they are serving – God or Mammon. Corruption sits pretty in the house of God. Venality sits pretty in the house of God. How can the preacher be a role model when he cheats and steals from the collection plates? How can the preacher be a role model when he is in the fast lane, chasing wealth by all and every means, legal and illegal, at his disposal?
Role models cannot rise through the muck of moral depravity that sits so pretty in our country. Spare a kind thought for our children. They want to be guided in their growth, as all children should, by men and women whose exemplary, selfless and humble lives, inspire them. I wish I could tell them where to find such men and women in this great land of 198 million people.
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