Our next best hope still elevates the eternal law of averages. They choose to ornament “less-than” even below the eternal line of averageness. I speak of the Nigerian youth. I speak of you and me. Beneath our passionate cry for change subsists a spinelessness that ornaments even the deserter with the valor of knights, thousands of miles from the scenes of combat and the valiant’s death. We have failed to make a response ideal to our cause. We have failed to display courage necessary to our survival and adequate to our time.
It’s every man for himself; the successful doctor, banker, journalist, engineer, police officer et al, do not care about anything and anybody else. It’s what Evelyn Waugh describes as the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich. Hence the desperation of the Nigerian youth to be rich, within the bounds of that dear old “wisdom” and thought process that infinitely manifests as foolishness.
Such is the mentality of the Nigerian youth, regrettably lacking in guts and substance; our utterances persistently leap from our lips as discontent, insignificant as the spores of fungi yet impinged on the base surfaces of our minds. It’s indeed shameful what cowardly lot we have become.
We dream of the future and talk of change within the limits of our intelligence forgetting that the world of such future that we anticipate will foster a more demanding struggle against the limits of our intelligence, not a cozy rose bed in which we can lie down to be waited upon by a more compliant fate and time.
Our cries are for a historic revolution, bloody or not; even as our thoughts pander between the dangers of revolt and the inherent benefits in accepting the status quo in a prudent act of self-preservation. Hence we revolt by impotent words and a mad, desperate dash for wealth or what we’ve learnt to coin as our share of the Nigerian dream.
This is our Nigerian dream: a lush, breathtaking future that de-emphasizes toil and accords our vanities a caressing glance. In the future of our dreams, we hope to keep strings of constantly increasing bank accounts at home and abroad; we hope to drive the best cars, live in palatial mansions in the choicest areas and enjoy the most lucrative job offers.
In the future of our dreams, everything would work out just fine. There will be justice and equity even as we tirelessly wish to lord it over others; every public officer will be accountable to the electorate; elections shall be fair and free of fraud and other irregularities; political hooliganism and the godfather culture shall become monstrosities of a dead era; public service will work and the anticipation of road, sea or air travel shall evoke no foreboding.
Our education, health, financial and transport sectors shall evolve at the highest standards; there will be stable adequate and stable electricity; bail will be free, police officers will decline and ask for no bribes; civil servants will become more honestly dedicated to their work and unemployment shall be reduced to the barest minimum.
In the future of our dreams, we shall have more beautifully planned cities in replacement of our slums; we shall have more educated and law-abiding public; more liberated journalists, writers, musicians and artists; our leaders shall be men of immense stature and enviable track records in both public and private service.
In pursuit of our dream future and desperation to guarantee its unobstructed realization, we have organized ourselves into riotous camps of retrograde youths offering ourselves as willing tools to every devious politician, godfather and criminal mastermind with a destructive plan.
To achieve the future of our dreams, we scorn honest labour to perpetuate indolence and the most perverted mission aids. Every youth seeks the easiest shortcut to the future of his dreams; collectively the sum of our dreams and heartfelt hunt manifest as the worst human expression of vanity, civilization and desire.
We do not do much to improve our plight and we do very little to improve the possibility of doing that. There is no conscious effort to mobilize ourselves for the good of our kind and the love of the collective good. Every youth pressure group presents a sham and a shameful representation of all that vanity and lassitude ever gives.
Some of us are more brazen than others; individually, they hustle to position and project themselves as the best leaders of thought and drivers of hope that we would ever have. I speak of the self-styled “youth leaders,” “advocacy gurus,” “evangelists” and “mentors” endlessly seeking local and international merit awards, presidential tea sessions and handshakes for leadership and inspiration they are yet to offer – and are infinitely handicapped to offer.
This shameful lot refuses to function and contribute their quota to the general pursuit and achievement of our cause. Rather they spend quality time applying for international and local funding for their suspicious schemes and non-governmental organizations (NGOs); they spend quality time functioning as campaigners, muscles and agents of the incumbent ruling class that we swore to ouster.
Together with our shameful and psychically handicapped “youth leaders,” we engage in unprecedented self-deception conveniently choosing to apply the balm to our chest while our hearts clog with morsels of our victual lust.
Eventually our deceitfulness and greed roost with devastating consequences in our lives: think Boko Haram, Niger Delta militants, kidnappers, Yahoo Boys, and every other corrupt youth scattered across our tribes, workplaces and pressure groups to the detriment of all and the Nigerian dream.
But rather than speak as much truth to ourselves as we love to speak to power, we conveniently ignore our dread for the truth in relation to our kind. Consequently, the impacts of our dishonesty extend far beyond our travails as you read. It gets scarier knowing we shall undoubtedly pay for our duplicity whether we like it or not as we are doing now.
The post oil subsidy removal palliative cash has crashed from its fabled N1.3 trillion to N426 billion and then nothing. Thus our subsidy removal protests were in vain. The youths that died have died in vain. President Jonathan and company will get away with tyranny and there is nothing any one can do about it.
This minute, our heartfelt protests are silenced by greed and the familiar rustle of currency. Mr. President and company as usual, accord patience to our yearnings; we are being noticed because it is election time. Come 2015, if we fail to vote the incumbent ruling class out of power, the mean fate and tragedies we share shall persist, and we shall only be seen during familiar moments of tragedy when our negligible fates manifest disastrously like photographs of acceptable deaths.
Our hearts shall cry to our leaders for succor and they shall reluctantly budge, as usual, alighting from their stuck-up pedestals to accord our tragedies a passing glance. We shall cry over relatives lost to avoidable car crashes, plane crashes, boat mishaps, bomb blasts and state sponsored genocide but leaders we have shall cry over vacations cut short, aborted fornication, and elongated work hours.
