Before Nigerian
independence, the youths played a vital role in wrestling political power from
our erstwhile colonial masters. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe established the Zik Group of
Newspapers with the West African Pilot as it’s foremost in the group in 1937 at the
age of thirty-three after a three year stint in editing the African
Morning Post in Accra, Ghana. It revolutionized the newspapering
industry and was the most nationalistic while still maintaining a modest
modicum of financial success in its three decades of existence.
Chief Anthony Enahoro edited the Southern
Nigerian Defender one of the newspapers in the Zik Group in 1944 at the
age of twenty-one straight from the famous Kings College Lagos without any
university education. He went on to move the motion for Nigeria’s independence
in 1953 at the age of thirty. Chief Bola Ige became the organizing secretary of
the defunct Action Group at the age of twenty-three. Ambassador Matthew Tawo
Mbu became the minister for Labour at the age of twenty-three in 1954 before he
went to the United Kingdom to study law. Mazi Mbonu Ojike spearheaded the
cultural nationalism with his famous ‘boycott
the boycottables’ in his early thirties after his educational sojourn in
the United States and became the Deputy Mayor of Lagos long before he turned
forty. The list is endless of youths who achieved a lot in pre-independence
Nigeria.
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| *Gov Bello and aides took to the streets to celebrate Buhari's return from UK medical trip |
