by Michael Orodare

They thought they were doing it right, not knowing they sat on a keg of gun-powder and their attitudes to the coming generation re-filled the keg daily.

A Former Minister of External Affairs, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, recently at a lecture in Akure, the Ondo State capital said “…the real tragedy (that has befallen Nigeria) is that we have bred several generations who have lost hope in today and tomorrow. They have given up on Nigeria because Nigeria has given up on them.”

Successive governments in Nigeria never recognised and had no vision for the generation behind them, their plan was to breed a generation they will continue to spoon-feed, a generation that will never get to make decision on its own, and that will forever be dependent on them. Doing that, they believed was the best way to cage this generation not to ever ask questions about how things are being run. But Now, the veil has finally been removed.

No young Nigerian wants to be hopeful again in what looks like a hopeless system, as everybody now demands for what they have been deprived access to in the past. This is why you hear most young people during electioneering period say: “I don’t even want to know who gets there, they should just give me their money and I will give them my vote.” This is so saddening and a perfect reflection of the situation followers have been pushed to with the choice of doing their will.

They thought they were doing it right, not knowing they sat on a keg of gun-powder and their attitudes to the coming generation re-filled the keg daily.

Now that everything seems to have gotten out of hands, they have resorted to Amnesty as the best option to appease the neglected. Interestingly, the so-called Amnesty is now being seen as another ‘National cake’ and no one wants to be left out of the unfolding scenario. The crux of the matter now is that youths in other parts of the nation are tired of folding their arms and watch as billions of naira are being doled out to curb insurgency in the name of Amnesty, Niger-Delta militants have gotten theirs, now it’s the turn of Boko Haram members in the North, who says the Eastern and Western ‘boys’ will continue to watch as these people are being deified after causing so much havoc to the nation? It’s not just possible!

All is not too well in the Southeast, the ‘ministry’ of kidnapping and highway robbery is fast growing as a veritable venture in the zone. The ‘ministry’ has grown by leaps and bounds, and its tentacles has also been extended to the Southwest zone. The Southwest is now fast becoming new haven for kidnappers. The growing menace of kidnapping in the Eastern and Western part of Nigeria, if not swiftly and properly curtailed now, will soon lead to another  plea for amnesty for kidnappers in these zones.

Unless something is done to restore hope of this generation in the project Nigeria, I’m afraid, we might not leave this crossroad soon.

There are no more societal values to hold on to as this generation hardly believes in the concept of society and in the Nigeria project.

We live in a society where those who had gone before us were not ready to pull back so they could shoot forward. None on those at hierarchy of political power will volunteer to sacrifice their present for the sake of the future, neither are they willing to live in harsh conditions today so their descendants could live well for centuries. The truth is, Nigeria has never been a futurist nation, we are all concerned about the present, paying no attention to what is to be and what the future should look like. We go into tomorrow without securing it from today and we live today like there is no tomorrow. We want to get everything’ and finish it now, not being mindful of our tomorrow. We are seven years away from Vision 20:2020, but where is the road map to achieve the vision. Where we stand is not as important as the direction we are heading.

Now that the future is here, the yesterday children they failed to recognize in their plans, the yesterday toddlers they have always assured of being tomorrow leaders are now tired of sitting on the bench, they all want to get what belongs to them by any available means. The ‘future leaders’ are now the centre of attention, placing Nigeria in the eye of the storm on the global scene.

What is imperative now is that, before we go to the polls in 2015, there is the need for this generation to engage prospective public officers in series of talks on the sincerity of their so-called agenda and sign a pact of allegiance which might sound odd, but will definitely go a long way in ensuring that our interests are well represented. It’s high time we stopped doing it the usual way to achieve what has never been achieved before.

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Michael Olanrewaju Orodare has worked in the Office of the Chief Press Secretary to the Ondo State Governor as a Media Assistant. He has garnered experience writing in the The Nation Newspaper working with the paper’s Sunday Desk. He leans towards the Labour Party. He blogs at www.michaelorodare.blogspot.com and tweets from @MichaelOrodare

 

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