08 Oct 2006 |
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What Young People Are Going Through Young people in Nigeria today face special challenges. They live in a society that is morally disturbed, where values have been turned upside down and there is so much uncertainty. They are bombarded daily by spectacles of failure and dispossession, in form of bad roads, epileptic power supply, absence of basic infrastructure, and widespread poverty. They are growing up in the midst of area boys, okada cyclists, prostitutes in the neighbourhood, gruffy artisans, armed robbers and pick pockets on the prowl; they are surrounded by desperate compatriots who are involved in a rat race: kidnappers, drug couriers, rapists, undisciplined motorists, corrupt men in uniform extorting money from the public, callous landlords and land speculators, treacherous public servants, with each and every one trying to take advantage of the other. These children are no longer taught history, so they do not have access to the past glory of our heritage. They may never know that hardwork and perseverance used to be hallowed virtues among our people, that valour and honesty used to be treasured. Parents no longer tell them folktales under the moonlight so they have no access to the rich lores of our people, the symbolism of those stories and the interconnected world of man, animals and spirits, the cultures and occupations which represent the African reality. Even the young persons who are growing up in the rural areas lack the same opportunity: their parents are too busy trying to make a living, or they are busy as members of the local OPC, MASSOB, Egbesu trying to fight for space within Nigeria. In the cities, how many parents still have the time to sit around with young adolescents in the house to tell stories when there are huge bills to be paid, competition with the Joneses, and too many distractions in the world of business? In the past, the churches used to help, the school system too. But Nigerian schools are no longer what they used to be. The few ones where standards are still maintained are beyond the reach of majority of young persons because they are expensive; to get good education in Nigeria today, you must be ready to pay huge bills. In most schools, the teachers are unhappy, they are distracted because teaching is for them a last resort, they would rather be banking executives or wannabes in a telecomm or oil and gas multinational company. They don't have time for the children. In places of religious worship these days, the principal message is that only the rich can get to Heaven. The rich have special seats. They are accorded special recognition. The poor are the only ones who are required to pay attention to the Scriptures. Nor is Government inspiring. Young persons at an impressionable age in their lives read about thieving Governors, about Ministers who have inflated contracts, and collected or given bribes; they hear about Governors who dress like women and jump bail in a foreign land; local government Chairmen who go to the Council only at the end of the month to share money, lawmakers in the National Assembly who collect N50 million to mortgage the people's sovereignty... they see all these persons and they are persons who by Nigerian standards are considered successful. Young persons in Nigeria today are left at the mercy of these dangerous signals; they are exposed to too much violence, too much foreign television and too much Nollywood with a disproportionate exposure to ideas and values. The effect is an emergent population of adolescents who have been wrongly socialised and whose values call for worry and concern. It is not an accident that nations of the world pay close attention to their young population. Successive Nigerian governments have also talked about a National Youth Policy, and the importance of young persons. The youth represent the future. In Nigeria, where the population is predominantly young, the youth indeed represent the face of the country and its future. The competition among nations now and in the future is now at the level of skills; nations will grow or die or stagnate depending on the quality of their human resource. An investment in the young population of Nigeria therefore would be an attempt to develop the country's capacity to compete. This will require a development framework which locates the human being at the centre of governance. There is a big responsibility in this direction for government at all levels especially in the light of available, sobering statistics. Parents have abdicated their roles too. The rat race is destroying families. Too many parents are throwing money, toys, gadgets, and holidays at their children; what they get in return are children that they do not know, adolescents who grow away from the family and become something else; the truth almost always arrives too late. Throwing money and gadgets at a child cannot serve as a substitute for parenting. On a long-term basis, Nigeria itself must be reinvented. Ours become a new society where the individual, young and old can develop a sense of worth. When pensioners are not paid and they are allowed to die on long queues waiting for money that may never come, when corpses are allowed to rot in the open, when policemen shoot innocent citizens indiscriminately, what is being said is that ours is a lawless society where the human being has no worth. Young persons growing up in a society where individual worth is valued are likely to have a higher sense of self-esteem. But must the young people of Nigeria wait till this society is restored before they take charge of their destiny? The simple truth is that in spite of all these woes and miseries that we have outlined, Nigeria is still an interesting country of beautiful contrasts. It is a country where an individual can still make his or her choice and excel at it. Nigeria may be disorganised as a corporate entity, as a collectivity, but there are happier stories at the individual levels. In the midst of chaos and failure, many Nigerians still stand out; they live a life of virtue, of excellence, they stand out as good examples, they are the silver lining in the clouds, the lilies of the valley; they provide a sharp contrast to those who have been pushed under by despair. It is a question of both choice and opportunity. For young people, it is more a question of choice. There are many young persons today who are in a hurry to enter the world of adults, they are impatient with the rituals of passage from youth and adulthood. Having watched television and films, they want to live in a surrealistic world of pretense. They want to be like Madonna and Shakira. J-Lo and Britney Spears are their patron-saints. They want to dress like Angelina Jolie and Halle Berry. They want to be seen in the company of the likes of Baby Face, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Will Smith, and R. Kelly. They forget the simple admonition that "Rome was not built in a day." When they are told that "not all that glitters is gold," they retort that Daddy is preaching again. And so our young persons turn themselves into vulnerable objects of desire. By the time they are 13, they are already dreaming of the day when they will have a boyfriend and experience the kind of passionate kissing that they see on television. At 15, they go on a discovery tour of the mysteries of sexual relations. Not surprisingly adolescent sexuality is one of the major problems facing society today. Official statistics indicate that the largest percentage of persons living with HIV/AIDS is to be found among young people, particularly adolescents. Apart from the risk of Sexually Transmitted Diseases, there is the additional burden of unwanted pregnancies and illegal abortion. Many young lives have been lost to criminal abortion procedures. When sex is not the issue, young persons take to a life of drugs or cultism. The boys want to dress and look like 50 Cents, Snoopy Dog and Ja Rule. They want to ape the Hip Hop stars of America. They want to be the future Akon. Either male or female, they abandon their studies, whereas they cannot recite a line of the organic table, they know and they can sing every lyric that ever fell from the mouth of DBanj, Styl Plus and Beyonce. Their heroes are those criminals who are now known as "Yahoo Boys". Living a life of illusion can only lead to perdition. Young people need to be guided to know the difference between make-believe and reality. They must be assisted to acquire the right sense of proportion. What they see on television is not necessarily reality. It is an extended, magnified version of reality. Art does not merely imitate reality, it expands it, its message is embodied. The so-called heroes we see on television are not direct renditions of their real-life versions, but artistes involved in a make-believe performance. Young persons need to be rescued from the dangers of fictionalized reality which sadly is the selling point of all forms of entertainment and commerce. Every parent having a young child, growing up in this troubled nation today has a major task on his or her hands. Do you know your child? That child on whose behalf you are running from pillar to post, hoping to help her find her feet in the world. Going about in this society, I see many of our distracted youths, totally abandoned to their own devices, lost to a world of endless boundaries and pressures. In the end, there is not much difference between the privileged child who lives in well-appointed neighbourhoods and attends special schools, and the forgotten lot who roam about on the streets of our cities. Sooner than later, destiny would bring the two together, in a manner that exposes the fault lines of our society.
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