NIGERIANYOUTHS AND STATE OF THE NATION

Gabriel Odunaiya argues that the country has failed in its responsibility to the youths

In the book “Simple Guides To Philosophy”, Sophia Macdonald quotes the great British philosopher Bertrand Russell who taught that “To understand an age or a nation, we must understand its philosophy”. According to him, “Philosophies emerge from their particular society, but conversely, they feed back into those societies (even if in a very diluted form) and do much to determine their development”. He argues further that “moral or ethical concepts cannot be understood without knowledge of the society that generated them”.

Russell`s assertion automatically imposes on us the duty of unearthing and identifying those sets of philosophical constructs that underpin the national psyche. The questions would then be: who are Nigerians and what are Nigerians? Beyond the geographical confines or territorial determination of the Nigerian state, what are the fundamental and distinctive characters of Nigerians beyond their ethnic cleavages, religious inclinations and geo-political divides? It would appear, strangely, that while Nigerians in diaspora are known for their attitudes and beliefs that have seen them reach unbelievable positive heights in their host countries, the results of those committed Nigerians who strive within the country`s borders, most times, tend to have different outcomes. This is after due consideration of relevant socio-political and economic variables.

In making this proposition, we are aware that there are both good and bad Nigerians everywhere. While it would appear that there is a more favourable impression of Nigerians outside of Nigeria, the opposite would seem to hold true about how we are perceived at home. How come our policemen on peacekeeping duties perform well outside our country and return home only to be sucked in by the malaise of the Nigerian nation? What is the influence of the prevailing national philosophy or value in shaping the attitude of the average Nigerian? The philosopher, Aristotle once wrote in his ‘Politics’: “The good of man must be the objective of the science of politics”. In other words, politics should and must be done within the spectrum of providing man with all that should better his life, all that will play as pivots in his existence and quest for happiness. A contented man is generally one who has all that he needs for life at his disposal; he is not in want of the basic necessities for positive and meaningful existence. Cruising through the contours of the community of nations, one tends to see that the world is in upheaval, in a state of cataclysmic fluctuation. There is no stability with regard to man’s search for happiness and his getting it. Right now, the world is in disarray. There is violence everywhere. The Middle East has been in turmoil since the commotion of the Arab Spring in Tunisia. There are reports of wars all over.Terrorism now wears a new look as it seems to be swallowing up major parts of the West and East.

Our country Nigeria is not exempt from this burgeoning sense of crisis enveloping our globe. There is hunger, insecurity, economic disturbance, corruption and mismanagement of the national treasury. Dictatorial practices at all levels of governance are still very much part of our polity as well as political naivety on the part of the law makers who pull up stunts which have accorded them the name “law breakers” a term they strive so hard to live up to. These men and women in political garb siphon public money with alarming gusto. Human rights issues and impunity are not abating and one is often made to believe human dignity is reserved only for the elite. Things have fallen together for them and things have fallen apart with respect to the nation and her teeming poor.

Our country’s state is one that is bereft of the happiness and the mindset of a people who do not feel a sense of belonging. Mashed with this present existential banality, a fast diminishing segment of the denizens of this country remember a period that had signaled a very great future for the nation. Alas! many years down the line, the promise of this period signaled by the oil boom had become the curse of the country. Biodun Jeyifo, exquisite and exceptional scholar had written with pain in his heart in his piece “Things Fall Apart; Things

Fall Together, “out of our great opportunity, we have managed to create an equally great calamity.” Jeyifo was obviously echoing the words of Chinua Achebe whose masterpiece book title bearing a similar name came out at the same period as our oil boom. While Achebe`s book has achieved unprecedented success, our nation has seen periods of sorrow and bitterness.

Rather than utilise our natural treasure, we have traded our wealth for sorrow, shame and disgrace. Our nation is a terribly wounded one and those who bear the brunt are the youths.

Things have fallen apart for them as millions of them roam the length and breadth of this country without hope, inspiration, education and in many instances, on empty stomachs.

This is in spite of their country being the eight largest exporter of crude oil in the world, having earned about $1 trillion since independence from the black gold. The vast majority are unemployed, functional illiterates, with thousands, if not millions, graduating from tertiary institutions every single year without prospects for jobs.

As a result, they have resorted to a culture of crime, cultism, drug peddling, sexual immorality, and religious extremism. The issues militating against our country, from militancy in the Niger Delta to the terrorism of the Boko Haram, kidnapping, smuggling, robbery and political hooliganism [employed by the political elite for malicious intents] reveal that a vast majority of their adherents are youths who feel betrayed, and forgotten by their country. They have been continuously and systematically eliminated from the national cake.

To these lot, the country has failed in her responsibility. The governments of this country have been so besotted to failure, almost as if failure of governance is a natural consequence of government. A trip to the North or better still to the regions of the Niger Delta with a teeming number of youths peopling those zones will reveal the mess. It is easier to say that the governments over the years lost focus somewhere along the way. But if the truth be told, was there really any government that was really focused on the things that mattered? Paul O.

Irikefe had argued in his work ‘Why Nigeria is not Working’ “that Nigeria is deficient of ‘the right institutions, formal and informal that would guarantee a self-correcting process….”

The situation in the country has been taken advantage of by all manner of people with mainly elitist cleavages exploiting the pitfalls of religion, ethnic frailties, geo-political jingoism and such other dangerous pastimes that keep our people permanently occupied and divided while the enemies feather their nests in the process. Modern religious populism and one of its by-product of ‘born againism’ is promoted by the beneficiaries of this religious distortion. The result is the continuation of an exploitative agenda hanging in the social spectrum of the nation, giving false hope where there is none and demobilising a vast majority of our people from the necessary social consciousness that inevitably leads to change The present state of things and their adverse effects on the youths inform us that we are standing on shifting sand and things are not well with us as a people. Our nation is sinking into a mire except something is done fast. Rev. Fr. Odunaiya wrote from Lagos