WHEN WE WERE YOUNG.....

Err.. first, this is a bit long, I am sorry. But I assure you, it’s worth the read.

I was having a discussion with an elderly person, about the state of the country. He began to lament about how the nation had become so corrupt, about insecurity and then robberies, fraud, and the likes.
Now, I am not a fan of having those kinds of discussions when there is no end to it, or when the end is not just in sight.
Anyways, this happened and this respectable man ended up blaming our generation (younger folks) for all the crimes and the moral decadence (by the way, did you notice that older adults love using this phrase so much?) in the society.
I thought about it briefly there and then decided to ask some things. I asked him what growing up was like. (You know adults like to talk about how they grew up and how they had free food, free this, free that, free everything and all). After he spoke profoundly about that, I now asked him what generation the looters and the embezzlers of the state finances belong to.

Intelligent man, he got where I was going to.

The same generation of people who enjoyed the benevolence of great governance and all, are the same generation who corrupted the system and made it terrible for those coming behind them.

Does this mean they are responsible for the choices we make? No! But did they play a role in creating the environment to influence those choices? Oh yes, a major role indeed.
Now, the emphasis of this article, or write up, or long story, is not to talk about them. They have done and are still doing what they are doing.

This is about you and I.

You and I who were born into incessant strikes and the era of ‘Up-Nepa’ and what do they say when light goes off again? Oh, yes we insult NEPA (you know the ones you say).

We have grown up to hear people cart away millions of dollars to store in Swiss accounts, and we have seen some of our aunties, uncles, fathers and mothers, grandpas and grandmas, queue endlessly for pension and all of that.

We are now in the era of the ‘pantiful harvest’ and ‘yahoo-yahoo, yahoo-plus’ and all sorts - I found out that the Nigerian ‘419’ is a standalone classification of frauds in some countries and there are actually some websites dedicated to fighting the Nigerian 419 – Just google Nigerian 419 and you would be amazed!

As if it is not enough, recently a popular actor was alleged to have staged an attack on himself, arranging with two men. Guess their nationalities? Our brothers, Nigerians.
So, what am I saying gan gan bayii?

Please stay with me.

In Mental health, Judgement is defined as the ability to analyze a situation, come to a logical situation and then act based on that logical conclusion.
Now, the problem is that there are some ‘logical conclusions’ that are static and basic, like knowing you are hungry and then choosing to eat, everyone is supposed to do that, but there are some that vary, depending on the context and discussion.
This is therefore, an attempt to appeal to your sense of Judgement.
We cannot keep blaming others for our misfortunes. It is obvious that we were not even born into a sane society, I mean, most of us. But at the same time our own participation has brought us into this mess that we are, so we can begin from there.
Someone stealing money in any state or country does not put a gun to your head to steal too. No, it does not.
Contrary to the opinion that some circles hold, poverty is also not an absolute compulsion to necessitate crime. It can be a very very strong factor, I agree, but there is still a choice, or else, everyone who is poor would have been a criminal.

Do you get this?

Let us begin to adjust our mindset about this. We have a choice!
The internet that brought cyberfraud also brought Facebook and networking and digital marketing, freelancing and other legit things that people do.
The lack and pain that brought some people to crime also made some people think and innovate.
Let us talk to ourselves people....

PANTIES CAN NEVER BRING YOU INTO THE BILL GATES ilk.

Show me a yahoo boy who entered Forbes’ by his fraud. Come on!

Change your mindset! Change your focus! Reset your priorities! Choose your mentors wisely!

Commit to building, the most successful people spent time building!
Look, even yahoo boys do not blow overnight and it is not even all of them that hammer! (I use this example because it seems many people can relate to it) Ask them hours and hours they spend trying to con people. If those same hours had been spent on something legit and profitable, they could have made some legit inventions or something that can really last, something that can change the world, something that can also shoot them into that Zuck-category, or, maybe not....

The Summary: Gbe body e ati soul e......... in the right direction!

You get me?

In conclusion, someday, I would be that elderly man, and I would be seated on a very luxurious couch, probably wearing custom made Gucci pyjamas (please no beefing) reading others writing about our achievements and hopefully about how someone saw this post and changed his thinking too, and then a dude would ask me how growing up was.
I would proudly tell him what I have told you about all our difficulties and then add...

‘All these happened while we were young, but also, while we were young, we found purpose and we found reasons to choose right, to believe right, to live right and we made choices that helped us make a difference and now, today, we have changed our world, we changed the world’.
But actually, we did not change the world now, we changed our thinking while we were young and in doing so, we changed our world, while we were young!’

I would then continue my reading, feeling myself. (Wait, do old people feel themselves? I donno oo.. but leave that one..)

Ok, bye, I have crossed a thousand words in less than an hour.
I just felt like sharing. Your well-thought out comments are welcome!

Olajire Testimony (TestyB)

Nice post. Should go first page.