During this last week, a statement purportedly credited to President Buhari about Nigerian youths drew the surprise, and I dare say ire, of many people, presumably youths. The statement said something to the effect that Nigerian youths are lazy and prefer to do nothing but live on the government’s largesse. And, considering that Nigeria is an oil producing country, there is no reason why this largesse should not err… be large indeed.
I bet you … pardon me… I don’t bet. I am not a good gambler. I am the kind that would lose all my cards within two minutes of play. So, I do believe that one of the strongest backings for the president’s statement may be found in a post I received quite a while back. I think it probably originated from some old one among us. It cited several prominent Nigerians who came into their own at very early ages. Among those named were Gowon (who became Head of State at 30), Obasanjo (who became Head of State at 35 or thereabouts,), Murtala, etc. The post then recited that many youths were still depending on their ‘popsies’ and ‘momsies’ for allowances at age thirty.
I also believe, as this column has reported many times, that further support for the statement may have come from the habit in many parts of the country, north and south, where many youths have not been properly integrated into the culture of work by their parents or guardians. In Europe, this begins at age twelve with paper deliveries at 5 a.m. even in freezing temperatures. In comparison, many Nigerian youths are nurtured into a culture of expectation even in adulthood. In other words, they are made to believe that their parents, neighbours, friends, teachers and country all collectively owe them a life, and they don’t see why those ones cannot make it a good one while they are at it.
Perhaps again, the oldies have noticed that most youths are really not ready to prepare themselves for leadership. Please notice my construction. To prepare oneself for any task, there must be a state of readiness. One of the marks of readiness is a willingness to accept discipline. There are few of our youths who are ready to subject their bodies and spirits to rigorous discipline and deprivation in order to attain the goal of assuming leadership. A good leader is a well-read man/woman. Ask the nearest youth to you what book he/she is reading. I beg you, please don’t be too surprised if they tell you ‘Twitter’.
The result is that most of our youths now are good at noise making and rabble rousing, but are intellectually vacant and ideologically vacuous. Occasionally, you may strike an oasis when you meet a youth who is ready to take a stand on a political issue. You may even strike oil in a youth who is ready to defend that stand. These are however few and far between. Most of them are more interested in their social media image.
I have also read many reactions to the president’s statement, and of course, reactions to the reactions. Many youths have appeared on the social media to deny that they are lazy. Say they, there are too many youths in Nigeria proving their worth in different endeavours – business, science, art, music, movies, etc. Heck, there are many youths in different countries making breakthroughs for the benefit of mankind. Then, they threw a challenge: let the president improve electricity in Nigeria and then he would see what the youths could do. Their logic is simple. The youths and others making waves outside the country, particularly in the advanced countries, are working under ideal conditions, which is not a given in Nigeria.
Like I said, the most notable reaction to these reactions has come from the presidency. The president’s men have declared that when the president spoke, he certainly did not mean to imply that all Nigerian youths are lazy, only a subset. They even went into the semantics of some and all to drive home the point that they thought that whoever thought the president meant all youths, then he/she needs to go back to school, assuming they have been already.
The problem, as I perceive it, is the question of who among the youths belongs in the subset of those addressed by the president. This is the point, I think, that we explain the behaviour of subsets. Unfortunately, I am no mathematician so I cannot avail you of the characteristics of how subsets mark off memberships. Until we get a mathematician on this column, we will have to make do with the president’s explanation.
You know, the Nigerian situation is very unfortunate. The country is growing up so wrong that practically nothing is right within it; only the oldies are happy, and that should tell you something. As of now, practically everyone is his/her own waterworks engineer, electricity company, road repairman, security operative, importer and exporter, general repairer, anything and everything. Heck, Nigerians are even now becoming their own priests! In a country where no proper social engineering has been attempted and so nothing seems to work, it is difficult to know who is lazy or who is not.
You know the proverb, all lizards crawl around on their bellies, so it is difficult to know which one has belly ache? Well, it applies beautifully in this situation. The chaotic state of the utilities in the country has robbed everyone of speech, well, except the president obviously. Even those who are working have little results to show for their efforts on account of the unhappy state of the land. So, this has not allowed us to know who is truly contributing to the development of the land from those who are just living off it. We would easily pick out a louse if the whole head were clean.
Many people have advanced reasons why this confusion persists, including this column, but we would not go into all that today. Let it just suffice to say that if there is a subset that can be genuinely identified, after all is said and done, facilities are put in place, instruments of work are given every Nigerian, and we are able to identify some who would not put their backs to it or bend their backs on the job, then we can come to some just and fairly valid conclusion. Again, this is the point where we talk about logical conclusions, right? Unfortunately, I am no board-certified philosopher, just an amateur, so, until we can get one on this column…
One thing I have noticed about this country though is the fact that the same set of people have been governing it from the early days. Yet, up till now, they have not got the art of governance. They have not put in place any sense of cohesion among Nigerians but have rather emphasised those things that divide us. They have put in place measures for exploitation of the land but have not added anything of societal value. There are no binding social structures to speak of from this subset. Yet, they have refused to ‘step aside’ and allow the younger ones have a go.
I always say though that whatever state these younger ones are in today has its foundation in the 1960s when the oldies laid down policies that did not enforce the free circulation of intellectual and/or reading materials. The minds that we are reaping today in these youths are the minds we planted many decades ago when the country destroyed the free search for knowledge, i.e., our educational system. To get our youths properly on the track of innovation, we must review our book reading policies.
