By Tijani Sheriffdeen
Countries around the world wake up
every new day to do something different, and of course productive. They attend
to the challenges their yesterday brought them, and draw brilliant inferences
from them to improve on their today. When one understands this, one begins to
wonder less why their tomorrow is always a lesson for many others. Nations
around the world who mean to develop and grow don’t look down on anything,
especially elements capable of irreversible and inerasable growth and
development. Developed nations understand the impact every single member of a
community has on that particular community, as such; they respect their
contributions, suggestions and complaints when they come, because they are only
meant to bring about growth or change when need be. Who respect opinions in Africa ? Not to talk of Nigeria !
Nations around the world use
development and growth, because the advancement is seen as a collaborative
effort, where everyone’s contribution matter. It’s expedient to note that the
youth of developed nations are themselves as essential ingredients I the
progress and phenomenal development of their states. I don’t want to believe
it’s not the same case with African youth, because they have overtime shown they
are productive and creative too, with the unmatchable news of their
achievements, which most time reach Africa
from developed nations, with few exceptional cases. Doesn’t it look like
something is wrong somewhere?
There is no much to why African
youth, particularly Nigerian youth, are not involved in the developmental
activities of their country, it’s because the society they have found
themselves doesn’t respect opinions, especially if it doesn’t go in line with
the idea of the ruling class. It all begins with having little or no concern
about the education of young minds, so that they may not be able to get the
right education to challenge situations and times unapologetically. And when
this happens, it means we have a fair number of students who have the
opportunity of getting proper education. In getting the so called proper
education, most academic institutions in Nigeria, particularly tertiary
institutions, water the thoughts of not been relevant and important that our
society and her leaders have successfully planted in many. A good number of
universities don’t respect the opinion of students; they want to dictate to
them what their perception about everything should be. At the end we have
students who graduate from higher institutions without a mind of their own; the
power of critical thinking is stolen from them. How then would the youth be
helpful to their society?
If we must get things right as a
nation, we must not forget that a nation like ours with a good number of youth
wouldn’t work, if the youth who are supposed to be instrumental in the
development of our state are one of the problems the nation must fix. Sixty per
cent of Nigeria ’s
population are youth, how would we go with no reasonable input from this bogus
number? When a farmer continue to harvest 40 per cent of planted crops every
now and then, with the remaining per cent wasting away, where would the farmer
stand? In comparison to others who get to smile at the turn-out of their
laborious effort. Do we say the former doesn’t work hard? Not until he finds a
lasting solution to how a good number of his crops waste away, he might still
be on the same spot, if good luck doesn’t push him back.
Education is key for a nation that
wants to stand tall, young minds should be given sound education, one that
would help them with a sound mind, capable of thinking critically, then we can
say we are heading somewhere. Higher institutions have a great role to play in
ensuring students are themselves as instruments of development, rather than
dictating functions that don’t bring about personal growth and development,
which only helps them in becoming more irrelevant in a society that doesn’t
place any value on them. Have you asked yourself why Nigerian youth leave this
country and thrive in other countries, why do young professionals have to leave
our country for greener pasture? Don’t you think a journey in the path of not
looking into how the bulk of our population can be useful could spell greater
doom? The line that we are not where we want to be, but not where we used to be
is as old as the days of our founding fathers, where the development, growth
and opinion of the youth matters. Now, we are not where we used to be, and we
are not where we want to be, we are lost, we don’t know where we are heading as
a nation!
*Sheriffdeen is an undergraduate at
the University of
Ilorin .
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