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NIGERIA AND THE UNEMPLOYED YOUTH
Millions of Nigeria’s young people face an uncertain future. What can the country expect from this generation of the deprived?
Life always comes in stages and circles. At independence in 1960, Nigeria brimmed with prodigious promise. Six years earlier, oil had been discovered in Oloibíri. The discovery was like a lottery ticket for a country that was always headed in one direction – up. There is really no need to rehash why a beautiful story has since turned sour.
Nigeria has many of its citizens aged between 18 and 25. That time is universally recognized as the time of youth. That is when people are at their strongest and fittest, physically and intellectually.
Before then and after then, most people are defined by fragility. Experience has shown that a country can either decide to make use of its youth in one of two ways – negatively or positively.
When any country properly harnesses the potential of its youth, it sets up itself nicely for speedy development. When things go the other way, though, young people, who are ordinarily an invaluable resource, can quickly become a time bomb. When able-bodied young people are left with nothing to do and no option but to do anything to survive, they soon become inventive in the worst possible kind of way.
The proliferation of terrorist groups in the country has been aided by the presence and desperation of many young people, who suddenly find out that they can channel all their frustrations into something worthy.
With the current commercialization of terrorism through profitable ventures such as banditry and kidnapping for ransom, crime has not just become a distraction for many young people, it has also become a means of livelihood.
Nigeria’s young people remain immensely frustrated by the state of their country. It is like they have run into a dead end with nowhere to run to and the future looking increasingly bleak.
Efforts to get young people to repose some hope in the future of the country have floundered. This has made a kind of response inevitable. This response is seen in the desperate drive of many to leave the country.
The last elections showed a country precipitously perched on a knife-edge.
It was closely fought and even today, the battle rages on in the courts over who won the election. In the wake of such a tightly contested election in which the majority of young people supported the candidate of a party that was deemed the loser, despondency has become the lot of many young people.
Unemployment bites as hard as it can in the circumstances. When crunch economic conditions are thrown into the mix, there is a mishmash of backbreaking conditions.
Many of Nigeria’s young people grew up being told that the future belongs to them. Today, nothing is further from the truth.
Septuagenarians and octogenarians hold sway in Nigeria’s highest offices, and expectedly they treat young people with barely disguised disdain. This disdain is usually put into policies and politics. But it also often insidiously seeps into political appointments and other opportunities.
So, at the end of the day, young people feel used, abused and suffocated. Because they are always left holding the short end of the stick, they seek ways to express their frustrations and further the prevalent intergenerational tension and friction.
The EndSARS protests of 2020 were a case in point. For about a month, young people wielded protests like a weapon. Their target was police brutality, but at the bottom of it all was a general dissatisfaction with the state of the country.
Today, young people in Nigeria remain at the mercy of factors beyond their control. They have to brave the odds to make ends meet or risk irrelevance. Those who cannot leave the country have to do whatever it takes to survive. Many times, that involves actions inimical to a better society.
But in a country of precious few options, who can really blame them? Who makes the rules? Who calls to judgment?
Ike Willie-Nwobu,
