I addressed
the Editorial of New African Chapter yesterday and I wrote from a depth of me. Let
me share with us.
I recently observed
something in my country Nigeria. I believe it's applicable to each of our
countries. Things have been quite difficult for us for a while. It's been so
difficult that people are merely concerned with survival; to eat and pay house
rent. They are so focused on these that they do not have time for politics or
political imbalance or injustice. When they protest or create hashtags online,
it lasts for a while; then our politicians continue with their politics.
Meanwhile, they created the scarcity in our economy. They
stash millions abroad and then employ their relatives in positions of authority
who end up killing the offices because they have nothing to offer.
So how do they handle the poor masses? They give them hand-outs,
employ them as electoral thugs, as P.As, as Social Media handlers, as security
officers and the more glorified offices of accountants and lawyers who help
them in smuggling money. The last positions are for very people; privileged
few.
Accordingly, every electoral year, the brainwashing and
political thuggery continues. They promise heaven and earth; and then kill off
all their political enemies. Afterwards, we complain, protest, create hashtags
and then go back to struggling to make ends meet. It's a continuous rat race.
African Youths are in trouble. If we don't wake up, it will
continue, we will die, our children and their will continue in the rat race and
who knows one day, Africa will go into oblivion and then all our leaders will
relocate to the West.
Media-wise, we have done quite poorly. Most things the world
knows about Africa comes from the West, where we are continually painted as
dumb and poor. What did we learn from their media? We imbibed a new, funny and
foreign culture of idolizing celebrities. I spend time with a lot of our young
people (teenagers); none of them ever desires anything aside becoming
musicians, actors, or any other form of the popular arts. I don’t know who our
next business men, mathematicians, elder statesmen, writers and etc, will be if
that is all most of our teens think about. When Youths discuss politics, it is
a game of chance for them in which they will cut their own share of the political
cake if leadership ever gets to them. Nothing deliberate is being done about our
political future. We still allow our fathers to employ us as political thugs
and personal assistants; meanwhile we make up 60% of our population. Even without
campaign, any Youth candidate can win any political office in our Country.
In pouring my heart to you guys, I've written something I'll
share in my Social networks.
A while ago when we were planning for the magazine, one of
us observed that the whole layout looks too serious and formal. I think that's
what African Youths needs right now. We need to jolt us back to reality. We are
so lost in the media frenzy and rat race that we have forgotten to adequately
plan for and contribute and even help determine the future of our individual
nations. We need to proactively begin to send out quality
information to re-orientate, encourage, jolt back, wake up to responsibility and
entrepreneurship and leadership, and get
our young people to be more involved in community development, African
politics and leadership and to get more engaged in noble roles that will show
that we are ready for the responsibility
of African politics. Shying away and abandoning politics to our “political
class” will keep us in this mess, forever. We have work to do.
Beulah
Writes @
twitter/Instagram-
@club7teen
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