a nairalanders facebook independence broadcast


https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1660986074181114&id=1620477694898619



DEMOCRACY AND NATION-BUILDING ; YOUNG PEOPLE AND THE FUTURE.
Democracy is a type of government adopted by the
people in pursuit of their collective goals and
aspirations. It goes beyond this and cut across areas
especially those of how they make their choice of
leaders who in their conviction is capable of leading them towards those aspirations.
The democratic process is correlated with naation-
buildin g concept because they both border on collective coexistence based on freedom.
Nation-building has to do with putting proper people in place, establishing institutions and cultivating habits
that sustaine the freedom earlier fought for and
gained; savouring and protecting the independence,
prestige and honour of our common and shared
norms.
People in the past whom we now revere and hold sacred for their dogged fight to free us from from
colonial servitude, have laid the steps for nation-
building so that we of the freedom days can take it up, protect it, live it, preserve it and pass it on from
one generation to the next. These steps were as then
and still are: honesty, patrotism to fatherland, unity,
harmony, tolerance, empathy, etc. And of course
these are the basic essentials that sustain any
community of people. Looking back at the antecedents of our heroes past,
we have no neglect pondering recent developments
in our politcal and economic landscape. In the past,
there may have been questions on corruption, political
and economic despiration, sectional and religious
tendencies, etc but they were minimal when compared to now. Millions of citizens go to bed hungry
and not even sure of tomorrow's bread but, a single
individual can boast of a wealth almost comparing
with our collective national annual output. There are
no jobs for people (qualified graduates and skilled
artisans) but, a person wants to keep sitting on a position until death even though not on the ground of
proven competencies. These and many more cast a
lot of questions on our actions both as individual and
as communities in keeping with national aspirations,
our future is bleak because we have lost direction.
Youth and the Future It is no longer new stating that the future of any nation
is its young people because they are a representation
of national productive and existencial potentials. The
contemporary Nigerian youth is not self-aware and
therefore is not capable of seeking self-developmen t. Before self-developmen t, self-awareness means that the individual has had a ''to and fro''
reflection about him/herself and about his/ her existence in the community during which discovery
has been made as to potential capacities and
strenghts and weaknesses. Self-development is an
effort at transforming the self in a way as to to
eliminate potential threats (weaknesses) to potential
capacities (strengths). It may not wrong then to assert that the contemporary Nigerian youth is not fully
capable of securing the future...so then, there is a
threat to the future generation.
But why are these so ?
Our social, political, economic and religious institutions
are weak, some are resting on wrong principles and philosophy that constitute perpetual hinderance on
the growth, advancement and sustainability of the
Nigerian Youth.
Our political institutions are full of individualistic
tendencies that has relegated nationalism to the
background. Our social institutions are full of imported ideologies that have destroyed our initially sacredly
held moral norms. Our economic institutions are under
the perpetual torture of corruption and
mismanagement. Our religious institutions breed
fanatical ideologies that pose threats to unity. These
are the incidents that have put the youth in a precarious state denied of every opportunity for self-
awareness and evelopment because we have no one
to look up to for mentorship.
What do we do ?
There are a lot to be done but, it will take us time to
arrive at the 'eureka' point. Young people must rise up and confront the challenging issues of contemporary
times because the future and dignity of this country
depends on how we face these challenges.
We must open up ourselves to to avenues that create
opportunities that help us define ourselves, first as
human beings and then as strategic members of the community.
Then we submit to self-developmen t through which we develop attitudes and build up capacities that will
help us take upt the task of nation-building . It is only then that we can ready ourselves to serve as checks
on the anomalies in our political, economic, social and
religious institutions.
Self-developmen t here means that we are now ready to turn our back on being used as agents
of political and economic despiration, vendeta,
terrorism, militancy, kidnapping, thuggery, character
defamation etc.; keep away from corrupt practices
and all those who promote them.
Imagine a Nigeria with a self-aware and self developed YOUTH.
ORJI JOSEPH OGBONNA
1ST OCT. 2015
ABAKALIKI, NIGERIA.



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joefredd006:
word !

Sure