FERENCE ROOM
MEDIA
RISE BOOKSTORE
CONTACT The Task Belongs to the Youth
to Save Nigeria Posted: August 13, 2012 at
8:45 am By Rayyan Umar I AM 24 years old; I hold a BSc.
as well as an MSc., from a
reputable business school in
England; I am well on my way
to making the transition from
“student member” of the ACCA (Association of Certified
Chartered Accountants) to full
membership; I am a couple of
months away from finishing up
my Youth Service in a
government agency. In an ideal world, I would be the poster
boy for optimism with regard
to my future, yet I find that this
is not entirely the case. I am Nigerian, you see, and that
tends to mean life for me is
never quite as straightforward
as it is for… say a South African
or Canadian of the same age and
similar academic qualifications. I find that as often as I dream
about my amazingly bright
future, I am equally tortured by
torrid visions of a future devoid
of any brightness. I find this
state of affairs unacceptable; after all, one of the joys of youth
is the ability to dream dreams,
and dream unencumbered. That
is what makes a Youth. I have asked myself on many
occasions how and why my
country finds itself in such a
sorry state today, why I cannot
be boundlessly optimistic about
my future like my Emirati or Canadian counterparts. The
answer is not so much
complicated as it is vast in
nature. Friends, classmates,
colleagues and books have
offered bits and pieces of this answer ranging from the
colonialists and their act of
entrusting Nigeria to the
“Northern feudalists” at
independence to a supposed
gene that all Africans possess that renders our ability to lead
and administer sincerely,
selflessly and effectively
impossible. Some less imaginative people
insist that the devil is to blame…
who am I to disagree with any
of them? I however feel like the
answer is rooted in one phrase,
“moral depravity” i.e. the impairment of virtue and moral
principles. It is worth noting that this
phenomenon is not exclusive to
Nigerians or even Africans, it is
global in nature. From Wall
Street to Onitsha the symptoms
of our diminishing sense of morality is rampant in the
actions of people and
institutions from Bernie Madoff
toying with the hard earned
money of American citizens to
the mechanic in Ojuelegba that would think nothing of charging
N10,000 (Naira) to replace your
worn-out brake pads for an
even worse set, in full
knowledge that they are
endangering your life by doing so. This underlying issue of moral
depravity is ubiquitous in
Nigerian society; the symptoms
differ depending on what area
of society one chooses to
examine, and the justifications are just as varied. “The
government isn’t doing
anything for me, I might as well
take my share of the money
that should be used to provide
the basic amenities for me”, “The money is going to be
misappropriated anyway, what
harm is there in ensuring part of
it is misappropriated in my
direction?” Two out of an endless supply of
justifications one is likely to
come across. One will find that
the concept of “two wrongs
don’t make a right” or “just
because everyone is doing it doesn’t make it acceptable”
hardly registers as good enough
arguments against such
behaviour. But enough about
the problems, where and what
is the solution? The solution for me is quite
simply a change of attitude.
Mind you, not in the obvious
sense, in that only a portion of
Nigerians needs to embark on
this change of attitude. The youths, the TRUE youths of
Nigeria, are the people who
need a change of attitude. We
are young, energetic, brimming
with ideas and exposed like no
other generation of Nigerian youths before us, yet we seem
to have already resigned
ourselves to the fate our current
leaders would have us
entrapped. For the most part, we are
distracted be it by drugs, girls,
living a false life, plotting on
how to fund the said false life,
you name it (some will suggest
that these distractions are necessary as without them, we
would surely go insane as a
result of the endless list of
challenges we face. I agree, but
suggest that there are less
hazardous ways to distract one) . The change of attitude I
advocate is not necessarily in
the moral sense alone like you
would expect. This is so for two
reasons, the first being that we
don’t need to be angels to rule effectively, and the second, it
would be foolhardy to think
that anyone reading this will go
ahead to fight the immense
personal battle that is necessary
to change the course of our diminishing sense of morality. Yes, personal uprightness is a
substantial part of it because
uprightness and dignity are
unstoppable force as
exemplified by Mahatma
Gandhi’s struggle. The change I suggest we make
has to do with one aspect of our
attitude. That is the “sit and
watch” attitude the majority of
Nigerians (most especially the
youths) have adopted in the face of the impending doom our
country faces. We feel helpless, like we can do
nothing to influence the sorry
state of our fortunes, this is
categorically untrue, especially
for the youths. Unlike our
parents, not only do we have the energy and numbers to
make an impact, we have
(generally speaking) fewer
responsibilities, how much
more the great incentive to
ensure that this change occurs. We don’t have children to feed,
clothe and educate, so we are
not putting any dependents at
risk by embarking on the
treacherous task of rising
against the system in the non- violent manner of Gandhi and
Martin Luther King Jnr, nor do
we have jobs with substantial
enough remuneration to
dissuade us from bringing about
change, especially when we look at the fact that should the
change be successful, it will
translate to a better standard of
living for both ourselves as well
as the dependents that will
come down the line. It is imperative that we realize,
sooner rather than later that
this is the only chance we have
to rise up, for if we let this
opportunity pass, we will wake
up one day to find we are too compromised (by the same
system we are unhappy with)
to fight for this change we
need, thus sentencing another
generation to the same
problems we were born into and have watched get
progressively worse. Having spoken at length about
the problem(s) and examined
what we need to change in the
process of embarking on this
process to engender a change of
sorts, it is necessary to present the steps we need to take
within the context of the
impact we need to make. Every single Nigerian that falls
under the designation of
“youth” needs to become
politically active. Politically
active in the sense that we need
to align with and provide our services to the political party
that we believe has the most
promise (with regard to
changing the course that the
country is treading right now)
with a view towards inheriting the machinery of the said
parties within a decade, give or
take. It goes without saying that
being politically active also
means that we all have to go
out, get registered to vote, and
exercise that right when the
time comes. The goal here is to take responsibility for our own
future, as opposed to leaving it
in the hands of the jokers in
charge right now. As I said earlier, we have
nothing to lose, if we succeed,
we find ourselves with the
opportunity to influence our
future as well as that of our
unborn children, if we fail, we can take whatever the future
brings knowing we didn’t sit
back and let it happen. Chances are, if 50 per cent of the
people who read this article
heed my suggestion, we will be
an unstoppable force and failure
will not be an option, let alone a
possibility. Rayyan Umar is an NYSC
member serving in Abuja