They call them leaders of tomorrow but the tomorrow has refused to come. That elusive tomorrow has turned out to be ages ago and the acclaimed leaders of tomorrow are now grandparents, yet they flaunt that hefty tag of tomorrow’s leaders. What do these children know? It is popularly said that the Iroko tree may be tall, yet its length is of no significance in determining its experience.
Our villages have now become breeding ground for illegitimate kids by youths who rely on their parent for survival. Some of the parents of these adolescents are themselves children in the general sense of it and have no means of livelihood but for the peasant farming which is hardly enough for their growing family size.
Our towns and cities are not better off as they are far from the expected civilisation they ought to portray. Even with the hunger and starvation that is eating deep into the bones and marrows of some families, children are still procreated indiscriminately. The result is the increasing number of out-of-school children as many of these families are better at giving birth than nurturing the babies.
A situation where a man still confesses to have married his wife solely for child bearing even after having begotten seven children from the woman with all of them without quality education is a mockery of the acclaimed advancement of this present generation.
The state of health of the average Nigerian child is pathetic. Due to lack of adequate resources by parents, there exists a poor breast feeding culture in our rural areas. The urban centres with much better civilization is almost not better off in this aspect as most families, even among those in the high social strata, are guilty of this charge. In some states of the federation, immunization against the six killer diseases, which surprisingly this current crop of leaders deemed to make free, is discouraged, leading to all forms of childhood killer diseases. And when some of these children survive without going through the immunization process, some form of deformation sets in. The consequence of which, the society is reaping in the form of children without the requisite fundamental knowledge to contribute positively to the development of the nation.
These days, children are left to grow up on their own without parental guidance. The desire to amass wealth has taken the burner in most urban homes at the expense of their families. It is not uncommon to find families where both parents leave home before the children wake up in the morning and return when the children are already asleep. Nannies and house helps play central roles in the upbringing of these children most of whom lack the necessary parental guidance as a result of the laissez-faire attitude of the nannies and house helps. The result is evident in the increasing number of wayward children in our society.
Due to the desire to help the growing family size especially in rural areas, some children drop out of school in a bid to complement the meagre income of the parents and help their younger ones. In such situations, since they have no handwork with which they could eke out a living as they were not even afforded the opportunity of learning a trade, they take to wheelbarrow pushing or other menial jobs just to ensure that their large family, which could be yet inconclusive as a result of the desire of the father and mother to still give birth, gets food on its table.
With time, these children, who have become adults by providence, learn from their fathers and mothers and become parents of their own. Marriage in this case is out of the question as all they need to start their families is to, for the boys, impregnate a girl, and for the girls, become pregnant for a man and then move in with him. With this, the circle of indiscriminate child bearing continues.
As a consequence of the above scenario, it is not uncommon to find children, who barely qualify as adults to have two or three children of their own with no means of livelihood. This gory picture is more pronounced in rural areas where a girl child of barely seventeen years already has two or three children of her own and still leaving with her parents. The parents of this ‘girl’ are still very much in their reproductive age and are still in the business of child bearing having not attained the age of forty five. With time, the children of this ‘girl’ get to puberty stage and the circle starts again. Thus, youths become grandparents at such early ages with no foundation for any of their offspring. The society reaps the benefit in the form of a growing population without a corresponding technical know-how for the progress of the nation.
The child is promised a better future by their representatives in positions of authority in return for their votes during periods of electioneering campaign. With the desire for a better tomorrow, the child is left with no option than to vote for the politician with the highest give-away prices in the form of rice, garri, salt etc during elections with the belief that when the said politician gets into office, the status quo will continue. To the child, reprieve is finally coming her way. As is often the case nowadays, their hopes are dashed as the politician pounces on their ignorance to get power and amass wealth for only himself and his immediate family without consideration for the poor masses that voted massively for him.
Angry and with no gainful employment, the child takes to the streets and tries to avenge herself of the injustice by resorting to kidnapping and robbery of those who are said to have amassed wealth. Not only that, the child also vents her anger on the society at large by trying to become rich through the back door.
With time, nemesis catches up with the child and she is made to face the wrath of the law. She is punished for all her crimes against her society while the real culprits, who are the genesis of the child’s problem, are the ones to even melt out the judgement on the child.
With the demise or imprisonment of their bread winner, a vacuum is created and another child, irrespective of the age, steps in to fend for the family. The circle continues and hopes continue to get dashed. The children take responsibility for family upkeep while he or she jettisons his or her lofty dreams for the good of the family.
Such has been, and is still is, the challenge facing many young families. The remote cause of the above chronology of the Nigerian child could be said to be lack of education and the remedies lies in the hands of our leaders.
If leaders, since the attainment of independence had made good their promise of a progressive Nigeria, perhaps the challenges faced by youths of this present dispensation would not have come to be. If the desire to amass wealth and get to positions of authority by all means is jettisoned and replaced with the desire for the emancipation of its populace from the ambiance of poverty, the gory situation of the Nigerian child would not have been.
The child is dying and succour seems far from sight. Corruption and shady tendencies reign supreme. The few lucky youths at the corridors of power have borrowed a leaf from their older counterparts and are now even worse than them.
The challenges facing the Nigerian child will continue to persist until our present crop of leaders reflect deeply and tackle without delay, the unemployment question that they have continued to shy away from. The child is dying at such unprecedented rate. Until the status quo and legislation change in favour of the youths of this distressed generation, the hope of a rewarding Nigeria may be a mirage.
Philip is a Corps member, NYSC Jalingo
