MUSINGS: A LEGACY THAT BENEFITS OUR GENERATION

We the Nigerian people have aired our views through various channels on the weaknesses and inadequacies of our government. Several surveys and studies have been carried out on and about the common Nigerian from surveys that show that we have the fifth (5) sexiest language on earth, through to those that state that most Nigerians live below poverty lines. We have been rated on sports, crimes and socio – economic profiles and all these more often than not contribute to the way we are perceived by the outside world.

Nigerian citizens have suffered many a setback on the heels of our diversion from an Agro Based economy to an economy which solely depends on the exportation of crude oil.

However, looking on the faces of many Nigerian youth or listening to a group of youth’s conversations what we tend to hear is the need to cause a revolution some believe in violent revolution others believe in a more subtle change while a few others have lost all hope for a better Nigeria. Whichever category we all fall into we all have an innate desire for a better, brighter and more promising future. We all want a better life to retire into and a better life for our children, but the question remains are we ready to have this future as a reality or do we want to remain in the ‘e go better’ dream we were born into?

Our generation has mostly suffered the bite of Nigeria’s economy. Most of us grew up hearing our parents talk about the good old days and how everything from jobs, to career opportunities to the easy of acquiring possessions to the presence of quality socio infrastructure were in abundance this most of us can only see with our mind’s eye.

Out of the bitterness of our realities we blame our parents for bringing us into a world that was unprepared, a shanty place were new born are welcomed with the cold realities of poverty and hunger, a place where dreams die before they are even born. We blame our government for all inadequacies from bad roads, inadequate water supply, poor housing, transport, poor salary structure, poor healthcare and so much more. We blame religious leaders for amassing wealth and teaching the gospel of prosperity, we blame our peers for misleading us and influencing us wrongly, we blame the west and world powers, we blame God for creating us a Nigerian. We blame! Blame!! Blame!!!

But what we have not explored has youths is our stake in the positive transformation of our beloved nation. We have refused to look inside of us and determine what or how we can make impact, on reaching positive changes in our society.

Many of us have attended various Tertiary institutions where the mediocrity of our generation becomes very obvious, while some girls believe that they cannot succeed except they satisfy the animal  urge in their lecturers some young men however, believe they must settle (bribe) lecturers in order to pass  this attitude has lowered the quality of education these sets of  youth have, hence making them unemployable after graduation they can neither get jobs based on merit even if there were any available, nor can they generate income through genuine and legal means because most have deadened their intelligence by believing bribery is the only way out.

When we eventually enter the employment market some still scale through and get well paid jobs through these shady means and we continue the tradition of bribery, corruption and laziness. Many of us take jobs we don’t want to work at. Many have become teachers of the next generation only to earn a salary. We do not attend classes or pass any form of knowledge to the generation coming after us how can we? When we had paid our way through school and made no effort to invest in educating ourselves. While some of us in public service are no better because bribe has become our major source of income. We complain that the pay is too small to cater for our responsibilities and this is the excuse we give to justify the need to continue to wallow in corrupt practises but to debunk this excuse all one needs to do is to see the amount of money been spent every weekend for birthdays, weddings and even burials of relatives who died a long time ago. The number of exotic cars on the streets and the number of shopping mall activities (a recent survey showed Nigerians as the second biggest shoppers in the United Kingdom). This entire scenario confirms that if we become modest we can still survive, work honestly and make a change that would change our future for good.

In order to change the present and make the future what we would like to be a part of is not a journey of one night. The road will not be easy, but we have to be willing.

To this I’ll quote my favourite secondary school teacher’s words ‘nothing good comes easy’ Change no matter how subtle or aggressive it may be we all need to change, change for good to create for the next generation the  reality we only dreamed of as youths.