The Vanity Of Youth

By Kunle Somorin

Two watershed events in the United States history give my thought a spin. First was Robert Kennedy who demonstrated his attraction for the Youths and Youthfulness in his 1966 Day of Affirmation Speech. He affirmed that ‘‘This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease.”

The other was at the inauguration of President Barrack Obama, where Senator Byrd recalled ‘‘... We have kept the Republic...Learn the rules...not just the rules, but the precedents as well...not many people bother to learn them these days...but these rules unlock the power...the keys to the Kingdom...so few people read the constitution today...I have been very fortunate...much to be thankful for. There’s not much I wouldn’t do over...I only have one regret, you know. The foolishness of youth...”

At that juncture, Obama responded ‘‘...we all have regrets...we just ask that in the end, God’s grace shines upon us...’’ Should we wait for regrets to creep into our youthful days before we know that with the ascendancy of the likes of Ms Stella Oduah as replacement for the Dr. Dora Akunyili, we need to check our leadership recruitment process that changes from bad to worse?

It was Ola Rotimi that opined that Nigerian leadership like any preoccupation under the pressure of TIME, displays aspects of the bizarre. A classic highpoint of this, he quipped, is the incessant alternation of power between democracy and stratocracy:  civilians and the military. Sometimes, he added the search for solidarity and progress lapses into perversion, demonstrating an even more bizarre oscillation of political power between Kakistocracy (government by the worst sort of citizens) and Kleptocracy (government by barefaced thieves).

Whatever informed Rotimi’s disenchantment and the pyrrhic sentiments expressed by the American leaders, our country is going down so much that we need to re-write this history of our go-slow economy under a clueless leadership, 12 years after Rotimi has left this world. The problem is not about age of those leading. It is their inscrutable penchant for stealing from the treasury and brandishing it before our very before.

The future belongs to the youths no doubt. But if we remembered the generations of the Zik, Awo, Sardauna and their ilks glowingly, will our children’s children be proud of us for leaving behind insecurity, poverty and hopelessness? I am sure they will sulk over how technology left us behind because of the greed of our present leaders. Will they not call us worse names than a wasted generation that Wole Soyinka called his?

We have no choice but to gird our loins ready to in our different capacities to forge an admirable brand for ourselves. These leaders are not like The world had seen great leaders attained their peak before age 50 when they are still strong, vibrant, idealistic and forward-looking - Kemal Atarturk in Turkey, Jawaharlal Nehru in India, General Chung Hi Pak in South Korea, Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore, Mohammad Mahathir in Malaysia and Julius Nyerere in Tanzania. We need our brand of these great men and women.

The democracy our leaders fought for is fast becoming a source of worry because political actors have elected to alienate themselves from the people. Mandates are freely stolen and impunity has remained the centrepiece of the domestic policy of the ruling party at the centre. We can no longer sit back and allow this stealing spree to go on.

Our youths’ future is being mortgaged. By the next round of elections we need to stand up as the engine of economic growth, being largely the workforce and the consuming class in this economy. The productivity of labour and the quality of consumer demand are the two critical drivers of economic growth from the supply and demand sides. So what do you make of these youths that are in government and do not make any critical difference. A political party has a 62-year-old grandfather as its National Youth leader. In fairness to Olusegun Obasanjo, he experimented with a few under 50s when he was in power. A few of them were outstanding.

Rather than allowing these adrift young people in power to keep frustrating competent ones, we need to believe more in ourselves; we need to be critically analytical when and where necessary; we need to have indomitable courage and unwavering commitment to Nigeria and all that are Nigerian; we need to stand firm for what is noble, edifying and wholesome; we need to fight those ills that have shackled us and held us back in the past; we need to establish shared values and enthrone norms, virtues and morality that are enduring, uplifting and distinguishing.

For those of them that have failed our generation. The shame will live with them forever.