Empowering the youths: a big step towards a better nation

Any adult in the society was at a point in time a youth. There is no doubt that the youths are the leaders of tomorrow. In our society today, the bulk of the work is being done by the youths. So the youths make up a great proportion of the work force.

The problem in the society today especially the Niger-Delta region which make-up headlines in the newspaper, Television & radio news. Youths restiveness is a major problem in this our part of the world. Majority of the youths if empowered will not participate in all these pain staking activities even though some do it due to ignorance but if the ignorant ones are empowered through proper awareness it also yield a positive result. The energy that would have been used to work towards a better Nation is being used for various societal ills (cultism, drug abuse, gangsters etc)  which in turn expose most of them to their consequences such premature death, destruction of properties as well as contacting HIV/AIDS where a greater percentage of people infected are the youths. The saying that the idle mind is the devil's workshop is not far from our society today as the jobless youths (because they are not empowered) find solace in doing things that are wrong. Many of them are not in school for one reason or the other; those out of school do not have a place where they can empower themselves.

If every youth in the society have one good thing at least keeping them busy, there will be less time for them to participate in the societal ills. The results of this will be a tremendous reduction in the rate of societal ills. One of advantage of keeping the youths busy with positive things is that they will strive for excellence which will be in the area of improving their potentials. Remember busy people get things done.

Nigerian youths are talented; they are brilliant; all we need to do is to channel their brilliancy to positive direction for benefit of the society. The youths can be empowered in various ways:

• They can be encouraged in the area of academic pursuit for those that left school unwillingly for one reason or the other e.g. scholarship awards, free education, education loans etc, to those that actually merit it without fear or favour.
• For those out of school aspiring to acquire a skill can be empowered to do so e.g. through use of functioning skill acquisitions centre; encouraging private firms to train them etc.
• Those that have already acquired a skill should be encouraged to utilize the acquired skill for societal development.

All these cannot be left for Government of the day alone; all hands from various sectors should on deck. Non-Governmental Organizations, Civil Society Organizations, Faith Based Organizations, Private sectors etc must contribute their quota no matter how small to salvage the country.

"The level of vices in the society is on the increase and most of the vices are being perpetuated by the youths who are the leaders of tomorrow. If this trend is no curbed, the future of this country will be in real danger. The problem of militancy started as a little struggle some years ago affecting only the communities as well as companies working in that region; little did we know it was going to be a national issue let alone a topic of discussion on world news. On a daily basis there is news of various crimes such as cultism, drug trafficking/abuse, armed robbery, hostage taking, prostitution etc. We might not be obviously or directly affected but there is an established fact that somebody close or related to us is either perpetuating one of these acts or is affected. The young ones are still coming up, there is need for them to be sensitized and educated so that they take a path that will be of benefit to them in particular and the nation in general".

Take a look at this scenario:

If it becomes mandatory that every 6 years old child in Nigeria (for example in the Niger-Delta) must attend primary school. At the age 12years, he/she goes to secondary school and by the time secondary school is over, the university is open for those that want to attend while a skill acquisition centre is open for those that want to be trained. You will discover that the younger ones coming up will have a good example to copy; there will be competition toward excellence.

The "militants" will not have people to recruit into their groups, this is because most of these people are brainwashed, out of ignorance not knowing the consequence of their acts join, perpetuate the act with serious enthusiasm only to be dumped later. The older ones have gone too far, it will be difficult for them to go back to school and as they getting older, the physical strength to carry out their activities decline with age hence they will be recruiting young ones to help them carry out these activities.

You could imagine a stranger coming into a city for the first time, not having any prior information about the city, the first trusted information he gets sticks faster and might be difficult to change and some times it might be too late when he finally gets the true information. Now if these young ones (before the age of 12years) are empowered in the positive direction, they will be informed and would not be easily cajoled to do what is wrong, they will grow up to see the truth for them selves, strive to develop what they meant then the issue of youth restiveness will become history.

As a way forward, it is worthy to state that most people commit various societal ills out of ignorance and idleness hence there is the need to educate them in the form of awareness campaign.  The need to set up functional empowerment centre cannot be over emphasized that can be in the form education centre or skill acquisition centre. The most important thing is to keep the youths busy with good things. The step towards a better is an enormous one, this fight should be from all sectors so as to also forestall problems arising from various sectors.

Dr. Oniovokukor Bright Ejakporvi
Indomitable Youths Organization
22 Textile Mill Road, Benin City,Edo State.
08052735427 

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