AFRICA is so doomed because we discuss its future without pondering the implications of the woes we bemoan.

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation proceeded in similar fashion when it painted the dreary picture of the future of African youth. It was rather the picture of a futureless continent, a real threat to the global community.

How would Africa’s more than one billion people fare in the next few decades? The report said poor governance, absence of quality education, health, youth employment were creating an uncompetitive continent, the youth bear the brunt.

Governance remains central to the challenges Africa faces. Minimal attention is paid to the future, except the future of leaderships that invest state resources in sustaining their regimes.

Many African leaders do not see the future of their countries beyond the confines of their own interests. Efforts at creating linkages that can develop the continent are lost in petty quests for individual prosperity, “value” leaders promote, and which the populace imitate.

The endangerment of Africa is total. Education barely prepares the youth for challenges of living in modern societies where the digital divide makes the differences uncomfortably obvious.

African youth who embrace digital technology mostly deploy their knowledge to the distracting rewards of social media.

Where does the salvation lie? The Mo Foundation Report emphasises education, laments and the additional burdens of educated youth being unemployed, with more school age kids still out of school.

Governance is key in tackling these issues because governments award episodic treatment to grave matters of the sustenance of societies. Too many African governments are clueless about the importance of investments in sectors that would create jobs to absorb the millions of youth whose present concerns must be tackled to guarantee their relevance in future.

Mo Foundation has a lot of work to do. Until the youth is the future of the continent and its affairs handled with the emergency the future of Africa demands, the Foundation’s job would not have been done. It is a lot of work that has deeper complications than many contemplate.

Africa suffers capacity deficit in many areas. Outside leadership, infrastructure remains a limiting factor in the utilisation of the continent’s resources. Perhaps, the biggest threat is the imitative corruption our leaders have imbibed. Billions of dollars stolen from the continent, annually, end up in foreign banks.

Not only do corrupt practices minimise resources available for development, they create a culture of impunity and a leadership lineage doused in corruption and decidedly immersed in maintaining its vice grip on Africa.

The world faces a grimmer future without a globally compliant Africa. The challenges are not for the youth. They are for the world.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/11/africas-grim-future/

ebere1712: Dude go and suck a devil dick. It is you, your generation and your nation that has a grim future

Kslib:
You are very stupid... Waht's wrong with ya?? Cant you see he's saying the truth??
Nonsense,keep decieving yourself that africa has a bright future under the current state of governance we're experiencing.. Let me tell you "THE DAYS OF E GO BETTER ARE OVER"... Rubbish..

shymexx: Food for thought....

redsun: No amount of education can transform a person without common sense.Today Africans are plagued with lack of common sense.

Gbawe:

I personally think Africa is not producing critical young thinkers at a healthy or desired rate. This, sadly, means we will continue to lag behind others more dedicated to ideas while we remain obsessed with frivolities.

thoth:
you are very right, at the rate things are going and the over americanization of the society's mindset i doubt nigeria would ever produce sensible youths again.

Gbawe:
I personally think Africa is not producing critical young thinkers at a healthy or desired rate. This, sadly, means we will continue to lag behind others more dedicated to ideas while we remain obsessed with frivolities.

shymexx:

But Africans will never agree with your assertion, rather, they'll curse and swear at you, for looking-down-on-them... I think living-in-denial, fake-bigman, blame-game, and inferiority complex are also part of the major reasons why Africa/Africans will continue to lag behind in the grand scheme of things in the globalised world..

shymexx:

But Africans will never agree with your assertion, rather, they'll curse and swear at you, for looking-down-on-them... I think living-in-denial, fake-bigman, blame-game, and inferiority complex are also part of the major reasons why Africa/Africans will continue to lag behind in the grand scheme of things in the globalised world..

Gbawe:

Indeed. Despite being the perennial laggards that needs to humbly embrace honest introspection and sincere soul searching, so as to catch up with and compete well against others, Africans remain the most vacuously vainglorious creatures to walk the earth. They are totally obsessed with petty enmity and absolutely worthless/shallow considerations that only mire the continent in underdevelopment.

Of course Africans always resort to cursing and swearing [b]because it is an automatic reaction for many of them. A bastardized value system, over-reliance on religion/deities, vestiges of slavery (in some cases) and the efficacy of "divide and conquer" tactics from cynical leaders sees them always happy to ignore what matters in preference for chasing shadows. This is why Africans are still the people most susceptible to dwelling on the notions others "hate" and "envy" them. Everything simplistically boils down to this for most Africans.

The end result is the petty model of societal existence that sees us focusing on trivia while ignoring what can better society for the benefit of the majority. Looking at young Africans, I am not encouraged at all. I see 'lambs to the slaughter' and a vital population group under-performing and not equipped to even match others let alone better them.

The endangerment of Africa is total. Education barely prepares the youth for challenges of living in modern societies where the digital divide makes the differences uncomfortably obvious

Perhaps, the biggest threat is the imitative corruption our leaders have imbibed. Billions of dollars stolen from the continent, annually, end up in foreign banks.

Gbawe:

Not so much a common sense issue. More that the value system of Africans is now very compromised and bastardized. For a continent endowed with so much and producing absolutely nada, one would think our youths would be up and doing. Instead they are obsessed with Brazilian hair, Louboutin footwear, embroidered blazers and garish materialism.

This is why it is still very easy for non-Africans to come to our continent and make it big in a relatively short period of time. The values and orientations of those non-Africans are calibrated properly to make them see and acknowledge what is important while the endowed remain totally blind to their own gifts.

thoth: The article is right; what is wrong is africans.

redsun:

It all boils down to common sense,which means good sense and sound judgement in practical matters,life matters.

Africans tend to live in limbos,in a world they dont understand,neither can they control.Yet they want they want to stay alive.

Even common spiders have better evolutionary traits they understand and control than africans.They are more intuitively and instinctively connected to their surroundings than africans.

Love_Decay:

I pity you. Your slavery is in the soul, ur soul is slave to the white man.

God lives in Nigeria

Love_Decay:
I pity you. Your slavery is in the soul, ur soul is slave to the white man.

God lives in Nigeria

shymexx:

But Africans will never agree with your assertion, rather, they'll curse and swear at you, for looking-down-on-them... I think living-in-denial, fake-bigman, blame-game, and inferiority complex are also part of the major reasons why Africa/Africans will continue to lag behind in the grand scheme of things in the globalised world..

Sybellah: Africans don't like when you are telling them the truth abi, we talk about our continent, u come talk about Europe? Why the H must u look at others'problems instead of solving your own?
The funniest is despite Europe social and economical problems at this time, they are still better off than us,
Africa produce many "academic-smart" people who becomes followers and who outside of their professional/school field, are unable to think for themselves. #OutdatedRobots.
We also have a few thinkers, but some of them fear to speak and take actions because standing against the gov will probably cost them their life.
I have heard before that the political science faculty was suppressed from CIV Academics because the president at the time thought this section would have brought up revolutionary minds that would stand up against him. lol Leaders prefer ruling uneducated and unconscious folks to better manipulate them.

Ufeolorun:
You often exhibit the typical attitude of black diasporeans : irredeemably spiteful of the establishment where their migrant parents bore them and at the same time going on about with the perception of Africa ,constructed by this same system.
For every "Nigeria" in Africa being shockingly run aground by utterly bottomless old men and women who love to ride posh cars on roads with pot holes,anchor yacht on dirty and unkempt waters and fly jet around an air space voted as one of the most unsafe, there are glimmers like Rwanda,Ghana,Bostwana.

We must get there sha ni!

Tony Spike:

At the bolded, this is exactly what people like Obafemi Awolowo, from what I read tried to do for his people. By educating the people, you empower them and create new generation of thinkers for the society. Education makes one uneasily manipulated. On the other hand, deprive them of education, they become pliant and easily manipulated. African leaders know this secret but would rather let their populace remain uneducated. It's a big problem across Africa. We currently have this education suppression in a particular part of Nigeria