Nigerian Youth: The Children of Nowadays
What does it feel like to be a Nigerian? It’s like a slap on your face from a stranger. The last breath after a cross-country, leaving you panting and exhausted. Words cannot explain this grief, yet the power to use them figuratively is at least one of the things Nigeria hasn’t taken from us yet. Sometimes I feel naive when I say I see change coming and how the Nigerian youth is already making a change but I see that the bad and useless Nigeria we’ve grown to know and be was not our fault. Therefore today, I cry as I write this because I know I have lived with anger for all the years I’ve lived.
I think it is about time our kids grow up privileged. Where they’re not only fortunate because they have wealthy parents who take them to the best schools, and a new country every summer. They should be privileged simply because they are Nigerian. It is about time they only want to see other countries because of the new experiences, to taste and feel the snow, and different cultures without the degradation of theirs. Tears should be of genuine fear and pain or joy, and not weakness, not anger towards a failed system.
It’s a torturous cycle that our leaders ride. Our country right now is gone gone, long gone. Riding down hills and valleys and rubbles and mud. Switching who takes the presidential seat by kin and never the deserving. The kin, rickety and gray like an obsolete kabu kabu carrying yams from Sokoto to Lagos. I'm just curious how one leads a nation at the age of retirement, but what do I know? What an old man can see sitting, a child cannot see even if he/she stands on the tallest Iroko tree. (Is that how it’s said?)
The sad truth is that the Nigerian dream is to get a green card. If it was sold, you would see more human beings than you ever saw in a voting queue. Don’t worry, Nigerians love their country people. I mean, have you heard stories about Lagos? It’s always from the citizens coming in and out of it. That long-distance relationship slaps. How the image of your own country has been so taunted that you can’t even love your own. It’s like a disgrace. “Why are you doing like those people in Nigerian films?” “You listen to Nigerian music, are you razz?” It's also funny how people use the word “local” in a derogatory way. “How will your best food be amala, are you local?” I don’t think I need to educate anyone on what that word truly means, the dictionary is free for all who can read this, but sadly, not the children hawking who would do anything just to go to school.
Through the eyes of the government, we are still little kids — the toddlers crawling, dragging the hems of their clothes, and poking them nonstop. If we take the time to examine the different sectors in this country, we would remain devastated. You can name it, education, health, economics. The oppression cycle is real and still lives on. This shows that our fight is way more than just ending SARS. It's breaking down the walls of torture, the shackles of injustice, and wiping the tears of the less privileged. It is ensuring that nobody dies again as a consequence of bad governance.
The Lekki Tollgate Massacre carried out by the Nigerian Army was one out of the millions of crimes that have happened in the country. The one caught on camera, while the world was watching, and we thank God for that. Have you thought about where there are no cameras? The children who hood their eyes and place them on your window on Freedom Way during the day, do you wonder what happens to them at night? Malnourishment, poverty, poor health services are all gunshots targeted directly at the foreheads of the Nigerian citizens and these have been occurring for decades. Situations such as poor education leave sustainable injuries and scars, where ASUU just won't let its people go. However, who is at fault? ASUU or the government that has refused to provide? With all this happening, who still sustains these injuries? Who is getting killed?
Let's briefly look into the education sector, secondary institutions, for instance: The government fails to provide and the proprietors feel the heat. They move on with the same energy to oppress their successors; the staff, the non-teaching staff, down to the prefects. It becomes a battle between physical and emotional abuse for anyone below them and for who does not give them the respect they desire — not deserve. A little drop of power and Nigerians are already intoxicated. If the government displays attributes such as love and respect, every other leader may follow suit. When there is so much compassion and unity in this country especially hierarchically, maybe leaders at all levels would be more patriotic and actually consider their appointments as responsibilities and not tyranny or money-laundering schemes.
It is scary because as vulnerable kids we pledged to Nigeria "with all our strength" for 10 years+. We were just in Primary 1, what did we know about making pledges? Green, white, green, we used poster color, crayon, sharpened color pencils. Learned old cultural songs, brought our local food to class for everyone to have a feel of the different cultures. We would be happy to wear iro and buba and to see the pretty Fulani girls in their short woven skirts to celebrate cultural/ Independence Day, but none of our teachers told us that was not what Nigeria was all about. I mean, that is the fun part, there is always a fun part but what does it truly mean to be a Nigerian — in 2020? They only bashed some of us for not knowing how to speak our native languages, somehow that was our fault too. How ironic is it that in every situation, we are the losers here? Who again sustains these injuries?
All-encompassing, with so much joy, perseverance, and hope, we have decided to speak and shout even. We endure the pain of these wounds, sometimes we cry, and oftentimes we laugh. Yes, that is our Paracetamol, laughter. The world can be crumbling down and there could be a tornado on Third Mainland Bridge and Nigerians must make jokes about it. This is the voice they wish they could take from us. In everything we do that's different from the status quo, they complain about "this generation". Okay, how about we do things their way? Let’s kill the masses who are drenched in poverty and sickness just because you may be losing some money. Let’s buy designers and five mansions in different continents we visit biannually with the funds for the betterment of the nation. Spitting and forbidding us, who raised us?
I think I'm done asking rhetorical questions, but I know the children of nowadays get me and know all the answers (A+ students). With a strong feeling of naivety, I still know that soon we shall prevail. Our children will meet the country we all desire and it would be due to our resilience, strong will, and unity — they can’t relate.
