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| Barr. Ugo Isiguzo |
"The heat that has made the Cock pursue the mother Hen will cook good food for its owner".
My brother and fellow thinker Idorenyin Umoh constrained me not to be silent over the Rivers rerun and blood bath that has resulted from it. I'm constrained to direct our public consciousness to some salient facts and truths which will be a departure from the seeming public accepted view of the issues affecting the Nigerian Youth. I don't care if some political slaves decide to give my view a political twist of APC or PDP and Buhari or Jonathan.
One of the greatest harm done to this generation of young people in Nigeria is the scrapping of HISTORY as a compulsory subject in our secondary schools. It has made them less concerned about where they are going to since they don't know that things have happened in the past. I say this with all sense of humility that any young Nigerian armed with Nigeria's history will be properly guided with the happenings taking place.
I will be brief in making two points which are central to the issue at hand. I'm one of those who will hardly blame the youths of Nigeria (described as silent majority by Idy Umoh) for their sheepish involvement in Nigerian political violence. My reason is simple. This country is plagued beyond the ten plagues of Egypt with a generation that has formed it's political class. We have a political generation of failed leaders born from the 1920's up to 1970's. They are the plague and bane of Nigeria's progress. A disgraceful generation who solidly believe in waste with no creative ideas on how to change the lot of its followers.
Fashola at a time boldly told striking and protesting students over the hike of school fees in LASU that if they think the school fees is to expensive, they should try ignorance. Investigations show that Fahola as a lawyer never went to school with such high school fees. Yet today, he thinks that good education is dependent of high school fees. A certain senior colleague gave her testimony of her encounter with looking for a state library in Ekiti state. After an arduous search, what she found as state library put up by the government was a shame to the eyes. Yet our generation of youths today is tagged a "poor reading generation". The education system put up before now was to reward hard work and thinking but today the brilliant ones are the best crammers and those ready to pay in kind or cash because there abound lazy teachers. Listening to the present Minister of Communication in the Senate during screening, i was dumb founded. This is a man who was a member of a political party as a University student and also as a new legal wig. He has seen one political party to another and held appointments courtesy of his membership. Today this same generation has made it a task before you can be a card carrying member of any political party. The minimal age to contest an ELECTION in Nigeria is 30 years. This is just a constitutional dream I doubt will ever come through. I will stop here in my examples. My point is simple, we are led by a generation that met a better Nigeria than the one they are giving to us today. What is the purpose?
That last question leads me to my second point. The purpose is to put us (the silent majority) under subjugation. From your school days as a young Nigerian, your self worth is diminished and you beg for your right. At the higher institutions it is worse. Professors who enjoyed a smooth and responsible school system find it hard, very hard to run it and make it better than they were in it. Instead they come up with outrageous educational policies targeted at lowering the self esteem of young students and call it REFORMS. Then you meet NYSC that worsens your psyche and you are made to believe things can't be done and achieved in orderliness and peace.
There is a generational conspiracy against this generation of youths. I mean youths who are not the children or relations of these wasteful leaders for the waste is for their children. This has nothing to do with their children as their fathers have stolen enough to sustain them to steal for their own children. These youths of no rich political background are left with the choice to struggle. They are left with the choice to get to the heights by any available means. Worst of all is when they have no education in a society like Nigeria. They won't die of hunger. No they won't. The society expects alot from them before they are 35 years old. They must meet up. They must do something. They must show loyalty because they have been caged and reduced to the level of fighting for their rights. So the idea of fighting and casualties is an embedded principle no wonder students say ALUTA CONTINUA, VICTORIA ASSERTA.
Unfortunately we seem not to understand or hate our situation. We seem too afraid to take the step of breaking the chain. Truth be told it is not easy to do so. Any means adopted to revolt against this unfortunate situation will be given a criminal or tribalistic tag after all who made the laws? But we must try. The first step is the sermon of re-orientation. We must begin to see ourselves as being better than they want us to be. We must start from there.
For when a man complains of an itching scrotum but scratches it with a smiling face, then you know he is doomed for importency.
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