Benjamin Disreali – 'Youth is a blunder; manhood a struggle; old age a regret."

It is always nice to contribute again and again to this platform. I have been away getting my doctorate, starting a new job and adjusting to a different environment. It’s always great to be back to a sane environment! During my hibernation, I tried keeping tabs with happenings in my dear country Nigeria and as usual I was not disappointed.

Let me say at this juncture that the Nigerian Youths are one of the most amazing sets of humans I have encountered. Mind you, I am one of them. However, despite the diversity of culture and variegated opinions across Nigerian Youths all over Nigeria, there is a common and generally agreed fact – we are all UNITED in STUPIDITY.

Think about these selected happenings – ASUU is currently on strike (with students well relaxed at home); labour unions are currently locked-in a duel with the government over some minimum wage; religious places of worship are organising all manner of programmes this period to fleece members and ensure that their brainwashing programmes are in progress and the country called Nigeria is gradually heading for destruction.

Forget about 2019, forget about political parties for now, forget about leadership, forget about Boko-Haram, forget about Fulani herdsmen. Let’s take a critical look at some salient statistics from the NBS and as reported by Premium Times. – “Out of a total active labour force of 85.08 million people in Nigeria, about 16 million people were unemployed in the third quarter of 2017, the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, has said. This was contained in a report on Labour Force Statistics in the third quarter of 2017 published on the bureau’s website on Monday. The report said the category of unemployed persons comprised 8.5 million people “who engaged in an economic activity for at least an hour” and 7.5 million people “who did absolutely nothing.” Also, 18.02 million people were underemployed, as they worked for 20 to 39 hours a week, which is less than the 40 hours required to be classified among the workforce. Fully employed persons, who worked for 40 hours and above in the third quarter of 2017 were 51.06 million people, resulting in a total of 77.6 million people engaged in an extent of economic activity. The report said among the 77.6 million people who were engaged in some extent of economic activity, 29.66 million people were self-employed, engaged in agriculture and 21.66 million were self-employed in non-agricultural sectors. About 19.72 million were working for pay or wage, which, is equivalent to 25.42 per cent of the total workers in the third quarter of 2017, while paid apprentices and unpaid house workers constituted 7.30 per cent and 1.11 per cent of the total working force engaged for at least one hour a week.”
[Source: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/256386-16-million-unemployed-nigeria-2017-third-quarter-nbs.html]

As if that was not enough, we were recently hit a lethal blow when we were termed the poverty capital of the world. According to an online report, “New reports by global development institutions show that human capital spending in Nigeria—the poverty capital of the world after recently overtaking India—is among the worst in the world.” The report concludes that “Nigeria’s social spending (mainly on health, education and social protection) is “shamefully low.” And those meager levels are reflected in reality as Nigeria is home to the highest number of out-of-school children.”

In the midst of these alarming statistics, Nigerian Youths have remained resolutely unperturbed. In fact, it has become common sight to see these so-called youths routinely hurl insults at themselves without any shame or remorsefulness to the precarious state they find themselves and the desolate future ahead of them. Let me not even get started on those so-called “idiots” who have sacrificed their brains and dignity on the altar of mammon for stipends/survival. If folks like Diete-Spiff (who became governor of Rivers State at 25), Ken Saro-wiwa (who became commissioner at 30+) and others mortgaged their future for Naira and Kobo, what legacy would we have inherited from them?

Why should any sane and level-headed thinking youth be a tool in the hand of any political office holder or religious cleric today? Do you see their kids involved in online exchange of insults at each other? How many times have you seen kids of the elites comment on political happenings in the country? Why are religious leaders all of a sudden complaining about the current “useless” government? They no longer have patronage and thus find it convenient to manipulate their followers to achieve relevance. Forget about any nonsense appeal from religious leaders, they do not have your interest at heart!

Nigerian youths are not to take all the blame.The Nigerian system which was consciously designed by the elites is built to discourage youths from taking their stand and place in Nigeria.

Nigerian youths and masses have been divided by religion , tribalism and have been further discouraged by poverty and poor education.They are busy trying to pull themselves out of decrepit poverty to even remember that there is a bigger fight at hand