Our Girls; Youth; ASUU; Election- no violence, bribes

Our Chibok girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. Inexplicably our Dapchi girl-child, 15, Leah Sharibu is not released.  Still more Boko Haram murders.

The huge turnout of desperate youth for the nationwide #BigBrother Naija auditions is a pointer to the suffering and yawning chasm in the lives of the youth seeking solutions to the problem in their lives – access to a normal livelihood in which aspirations can be achieved by hard work and honesty. They are forced to fight for spaces in a sometimes disgraceful show of shameful human emotions that is voyeurism at its worst. But can these same youth translate or metamorphose that demonstrated attempt to solve this desperation into the need to act in the coming political arena, not as thugs but as keen voters immune to bribes? They know the cause of their lack of jobs is entirely political, greed and corruption-based all compounded by Nigeria being a country with the most expensive electricity supply in the world -generator power complicating business models and compounding the cost of doing business and being a customer in Nigeria for every single citizen. Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, MAN, has computed that approximately N246b was spent on generator fueling in two years. All this is transferred directly to the client or customer through higher charges.

The youth voters we know are in their good numbers, enough to swing the election in any direction they want. Will the youth vote contribute to getting the needed political change and come out with similar dedication, conviction and tenacity to ensure that they all, and their friends and peers, vote on February 16? The youth vote can swing the election in any direction it wants. But it requires to be united to make the needed change. If it unites behind one candidate nationwide, it could place any president in power of its choosing. Fragmented, the youth vote will be of no impact. By the way some smart youth has printed a ‘Big Brother PQP’ for sale. Anything to survive. But there is a problem with the youth of corporate Nigeria’s making. The whole issue of ‘instant millionairism’ was started years ago in the promotional bonanzas and prizes across many companies. The youth were attracted to quick money without work. At its peak every day, they advertised one or 10 instant millionaire competitions amounting to N2-3billion/year. All these have corrupted the minds of the youth raising a few winners, many losers and many more frustrated with life.

It a great disgrace to Nigeria that its youth struggling to face their studies at university are on the receiving end of the ASUU strike. Everywhere we run into frustrated youth, sitting at home frustrated beyond words as time ticks by, time that cannot be recalled, while government and ASUU posture and play the game of negotiation, TV dramatics and media grandstanding. Sadly government continues to shirk its responsibility to meet criminal shortfalls in the education budget responsible for the disastrous state of the universities being campaigned against by ASUU. It is always a pity that the Nigerian public stands aside and masquerades as innocent bystanders or a disinterested  crowd when such strikes occur and watch instead of coming down in favour of one or the other side based on wise counsel. We have not heard any outcry by a parent and guardian coalition or more importantly the alumni associations of the universities backs by facts and figures in favour of one side or the other. Analytical education news articles on the causes and consequences of the strike are sadly thin on the ground in number and especially in vital statistics. ASUU is notorious for being a poor public advocate of the need for a strike and public opinion is too often swayed against ASUU by fickle press stories. Nobody wants a strike. Any incoming government must face its enormous responsibility to clean up the mess created in education by serial underfunding of past governments whose heads sit on the Council of State and continue to mislead us into the future.

The courts have finally forced the forfeiture of Patience Jonathan’s N1b even as they have lost all credibility in the eyes of the public with judge after judge falling under the microscope but no all passing the anticorruption test.

The arctic freeze is a reminder of the fragility of the earth and how lucky we are in Nigeria. Just imagine for a moment if we had such weather and such a poor power supply system. Just imagine how many would be frozen to death. So far, our greedy, selfish politicians, totally responsible for our situation of ‘the poorest power grid in Africa’ are very lucky that we are so complacent and the weather is so good to us and we accept and cope with the heat.

As we prepare to vote next Saturday, look at the politicians you seek to place in power over you for the next four years and count the number of thugs they move around with. The more the thugs the less the sincerity. Please work for a peaceful election and keep as many photographs of any violence without endangering yourself. Death is permanent to thug and voter.  We want to vote without violence!

• Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.