Trying To Put My Frustrations Into Words 

Nigeria has a teeming and fast growing youth population, which was put at 70% of our entire population or 151 million with 42% percent of that number under the average age of 15.7 according to “Worldometer,” as at August 25, 2022.

This overwhelming young population is vibrant, energetic, smart, mostly aware of the world (albeit often in a defective manner), and hungry for a better life.

Unfortunately, their energy is often expended on negative things or in the wrong manner. These younger Nigerians are mostly un-motivated, un-educated, ill-educated, or inappropriately educated, un-oriented and more importantly ill equipped or prepared for the fast evolving and complicated world they have to face and live in.

The inadvertent consequences of these are the anger, resentment, lack of patriotism, rebellion, and general disfunctionality that we see among our youth today, resulting in vice of various kinds.

When I think of the fact that these youth are the future leaders of Nigeria beyond the slogan, I get very worried, scared stiff and even more frustrated at the seeming lack of genuine consciousness and a sense of urgency in addressing the obvious dangers that these realities pose to the youth and our nation.

Some persons occasionally accuse me of impatience but there is a real need for that sense of urgency because literally every hour that passes takes us closer to the potential dangers ahead and more importantly one or more youth are lost to these gaping dynamics.

There is an urgent need to begin to lay down practical plans to prepare, protect and indeed save our youths and to dilligently execute those without hesitation or prevarication. Tomorrow is too late.

In doing so, we must resist the temptation to wholesale import or deploy foreign ideas that may not fit well into our dynamics as well as avoid being dictated to by external interests. We must deliberately generate ideas and develop templates that are tailor made to our realities and unique characteristics.

In my humble view, Sports, Education, Agriculture, ICT and Orientation, in no particular order would play a significant role in that.

Briefly …

1. SPORTS: Our approach to sports as far as the youth are concerned should deliberately seek to diversify beyond football.

Deliberately developing skills and exploiting opportunities in other sports including Basketball, Tennis (all forms), Athletics, Cricket, Baseball, Volleyball, Golf, Hockey, Boxing, Rugby, Badminton, Horse racing, Gymnastics, Cycling, Swimming, Car racing etc, with emphasis on polishing the abundant raw talent and energy all over Nigeria into finished and professional products including exploiting other aspects of sports like sports administration, health, equipment and kit production, etc would be key.

Aside from mopping up the excess energy and talent among our youth and diverting it away from negative ventures, it would provide an alternative avenue for lucrative employment and a good life for our youth as is the case in most advanced nations.

2. AGRICULTURE: Like I have always said, agriculture is a ready, available and affordable mass employer.

There is nothing wrong with setting up national farms, farm settlements and agricultural complexes at the regional/zonal levels, with public funds, covering the entire gamut of the agricultural value chain, inclusive of research, mechanised farming, equipment manufacture and repair, agro processing, etc. This would instantly mop up thousands, if not millions of young Nigerians.

Apart from providing much needed gainful employment in the short run, this would teach and enhance transfer of practical skills in agriculture in all its ramifications, making the youths self reliant.

3. EDUCATION: Our mentality towards education should urgently shift from largely academic or formal to deliberately include non formal education, covering artisanship, technical education, trades etc.

The focus of education of our youths should be on making them financially viable and economically independent in addition to inculcating the right values and ethics which are vastly lacking right now.

4. ICT: The importance of ICT can not be over emphasised but we should be deliberate about avoiding over ‘academicization’. Greater emphasis should be placed on imparting practical and futuristic skills like in Coding, Software development and related skills.

5. CITIZEN/CIVIC ORIENTATION: The importance of citizenship orientation and re-orientation of our youths to the success of these lofty dreams is a no-brainer.

We must deliberately and urgently work to steer our youths back to those values, morals and ethics that made Nigeria what it used to be. There is no alternative to that.

Finally …

On the part of our youths, they need to quickly sobre up and realise that they are being shortchanged as it were. They need to wake up to the reality that there is more to life than cruise catching, ‘vawulence’, praise singing, trending on social media and ‘japaing’. What they are looking for in Sokoto is in abundance inside their Nigerian buba and sokoto.

I sincerely hope that this my little input reaches and speaks to some persons, especially those who are in positions to do something about it. The fancy grammar of many of our leaders alone won’t help much.

Our youth deserve more than we are offering them presently. We do not have time. Any youth lost today is lost for ever and can never be replaced.