Nigeria in our time celebrates 50 years of national independence and there is much excitement in the air. Facebook status updates, Blackberry images, and the streets of Nigeria resonate with nationalistic passion. Huge resources have been committed to marking this auspicious moment of our national history and although many have described the euphoria as unreal and dangerously pretentious, we may still have reasons to celebrate. I have often wondered what the attainment of 50 years of independent existence holds for the unseen forces of darkness that have also hovered over our nation state since the Union Jack, the symbol of British imperialism was lowered to make way for the hoisting of the Green White Green coloured Nigerian flag in 1960. Many Nigerians my age bracket, really do not see anything to celebrate with a nation that has ridiculed the tenets of accountability in a fashion yet unseen in world history. They are of the conviction that the hype is a sheer and unfortunate celebration of mediocrity ably represented by the country with the highest number of black people the world over. This generation in their lifetime have yet to come to grasp exactly what it means to enjoy clean drinking water running from taps that never run dry or electricity supply which for years never blink. This generation remains confounded at huge resources expended to celebrate a nation where university graduates consider it a luxury to complete tertiary education unattended by industrial actions. This piece seeks to flip the coin of despondency and hopelessness that youths in Nigeria have being offered as representing our very essence as a people.
I have often had to defend Nigeria within circles of friends from different countries of the world but these defences are usually shallow and leave a gap on the inside of me when the reality of our circumstances stare me in the face. I make no pretence about our state and in my heart wish it was not so bad for us. I am however delighted to be a Nigerian whenever in the United Kingdom, I tune my decoder to Nigezie – a channel on the legendary SKY network dedicated to showcasing the eminently intimidating capacity of Nigerian youths for music production. Our youths today produce music easily comparable with what obtains in the Grammy winning albums of American music stars. There is no denying that Hip Hop is fast becoming a global culture and whether you like it or not, Nigerian artistes are recording deals in the region of tens of millions of Naira. It is not yet uhuru I quite easily agree but when placed side by side the characteristics of what the hustle in Nigeria represents, I want to sell my room to support these guys. The Nigeria that suffers excessive looting is not known to these guys. They hold it down for themselves and have learnt to forge without what is common place for their contemporaries in other parts of the world. They represent our generation, they represent our spirit – resilient, tough and goal focused.
What we have left as a healthcare sector is manned by Nigerian youths – Doctors, Pharmacists, Lab Scientists, Microbiologists – who well have the opportunity of profitably transferring knowledge and experience to other parts of the world but who for the faith in country remain within the shores of Nigeria to tend to the feeble, the beaten and weak Nigerians, a people who have been battered by the terminal and debilitating wounds of political corruption and economic sabotage. They go for calls in security risk areas and yet suffer delayed salaries. These professionals are posted to remote locations in Nigeria, fighting mosquitoes and the lack or near absence of good drinking water. They are the heroes of Nigerian independence and not necessarily the occupants of exotic cars filing out to the Eagle Square Abuja to pop champagne on the grounds of the same country that is home to slums and flood beaten villages. The contributions of these medical practitioners reflect the spirit of compassion and fraternal co-existence we imbibe from playgroups in primary schools and secondary schools. Although often overlooked, these ones are the beautiful of our earth. They are the budding hope of our generation. They are not politicians riding on the back of epidemics to build mansions. They are not the ones who employ the fight against HIV/AIDS as their personal fights against poverty. They have not converted funds meant for dispensaries and sick bays in hamlets and villages to the purchase of state-of-the-art office equipment. They, like a million others remain the unsung heroes of our national independence today.
Nigerian universities and tertiary institutions churn out tens of thousands of graduates a year on nearly nonexistent job opportunities. Nigerian youths lack jobs, not because they are incapable of hard work or without the requisite qualifications but because the jobs are simply not there. Despite that, computer village – a business district in Lagos without virtually any direct connect to government, is a ready hub for amazing wonders on computers, phones and other information technologies. The Computer Village to me reflects essentially the reality of being a youth in these days. Graduates and non graduates alike converge every morning to provide solutions to millions of Nigerians who themselves face the same economic hardship on the streets and to whom the discounts offered at the district is a major relief. Hate or like them, local ICT centres such as the Computer Village, GSM villages, and hardware repair stores spread across the length and breadth of Nigeria demonstrate the enormous capacities for self sufficiency, intellectual grooming, endurance and ultimately survival present in the youth of this generation. So while the goons in government sign ‘tripartite agreements’, ‘MOUs’, engage in ‘bilateral trade talks’, and ‘knowledge exchange’ on information technology and thereafter convert the contracts of such proceeds to fattened bank accounts while the Saheeds, Uches, Hamzats and Stephens battle under the Nigerian sun to install locally developed solutions to computers and laptops of many. They are not in air conditioned SUVs, transported to luxurious hotels to further plunder the nation, no. They are never in the minds of national leadership when ICT needs emerge. Every opportunity to these leaders is one for further self enrichment, computer village might as well burn.
Every year, thousands of Nigerian youths cross to the west in pursuit of western education. They pay exorbitant fees for what is known in local parlance as ‘foreign pali’ (internationally recognised educational qualifications). To demonstrate that the Nigerian youth is one and same irrespective of social status, I will cite the example of the willingness of many to resign positions where high income is guaranteed in Nigeria to venture to uncertainty terrain. Nigerian youths leave jobs in the oil and gas sector, banking, telecommunications and return to classrooms in the hundreds of universities in the UK and thousands in the United States of America, Malaysia, Ukraine, Sweden and many other countries which to many of us remain mere geographical names on maps. These youths are not under any form of scholarship. They do not enjoy any privilege of being Nigerian youths in the Diaspora yet excel in academic endeavours and ground breaking successes. Privileged locally as they are, they engage in menial job faring for survival seeing that the seemingly high income in Nigeria is nothing but a trifle overseas. Their focus is on progressive self development, young men and women who on their very own bring glory to self and country and who go the rounds of cleaning and washing London buses for survival. These educated Nigerian youths are not the ones with the executive appointments that seat atop government agencies desecrating constitutional mandates, they are not the ones bullying their ways through clearance from the Nigerian Senate, they are not the ones for whom sirens are blown. As a matter of fact, they are only known by kith and kin, and of course government attitude seems to be who send you go school for yankee?
We should not be sad because we have seen abuse of youth. We should continue to have enduring faith that with commitment to doing right, the Nigeria of our dreams will come. We have been raped we agree and have even been written off by some as incapable of providing national leadership but the same ones are the ones who took our country to the gods of destruction as squalid sacrifices. Given the time and space, I could continue to chronicle the sacrifices our youths have made to and for national development. We are not the focus of any celebrations but tomorrow is definitely ours. I have just highlighted a few from tonnes of contributions that we have made and painfully so. So while the roads in Abuja are still being painted in the morning of our independence anniversary (a reflection of the incompetence, bad planning and poor implementation of ideas of the old order) and majority of settlements will go through the day without electricity, let us rejoice for there is a tomorrow when the elements of oppression and corruption will be swept off. The hope we have will unite and strengthen us and for those of you (or us as the case may be) who will be alive in 50 years, may it never be this kind of superficial, decorative and cosmetic celebration. May they be celebrations of real success, of visible development, and of tangible progress.
To the youths of Nigeria, Happy Independence anniversary. God bless you and your dreams.
Wole Aguda
