Is there anybody out there?

October 5 at 11:14pm ·

Sometimes I sit in a chair, ravaging through the thoughts of how people live a rubbished, narrowly stereotyped life. It really tricks me out how people do the wrong things so easily and so readily. There is such plethora of ludicrous and incongruous thoughts looming and fighting hard in the parochial mindsets of various Nigerians, Africans at large.
It is rather sardonic and extremely lugubrious that most Nigerians lack an iota of self will. Most of the things we find ourselves doing are functions of a stereotyped model of living, inspired by an irrational bunch of macerating government officials. Yes, the government kills so many things in the lives of the ordinary Nigerian. Creativity is at its lowest ebb, and it keeps being murdered daily, and so effortlessly, by a contrived effort of a system worth throwing into the bush, and a burdened mind of the potential creative thinker.
The annoying aspect about this folly is that everyone in this country is very much aware about the stifling situation we have been born into, yet, few people are doing anything to snatch themselves away from the yokes that threaten their freedom. The youth of today is a miniature model of the proverbial eaglet, born and lost in transit into a company of chicks, growing up with them. Of course, the eaglet won’t be able to fly when it grows older. Show me your friends, they say, and I will tell you who you are.
 The Nigerian youth is not ready to take a flight. He prefers to stay as an eaglet among chicks, not knowing that when the chicks turn chickens, it won’t turn to an eagle, simply because it has lost direction of a path to a rewarding future. He basks in the euphoria of today’s petty supplies, neglecting a very useful pedagogy that would have shot up his insight and outward vision. He lacks the initiative and creativity that characterizes other youths in other climes. He is not ready for change, still treading in the fallen paths of his fathers. An erroneous mindset is his delight, and he takes core decisions based on sheer and extraneous fallacies.
It, however, should be noted that it is not the fault of the Nigerian youth the pool of problems he has found himself in. it is rather, the fault of a corruptible, disengaged, futile national system into which he is born, with little or no supplements for survival, just like the aforementioned eaglet. The Nigerian system is one in which personnel reigns over personality and prestige, and positions are outsourced only to those who have resources to afford it- and who are those people? The government officials and their fellow come-chop aides of course!
Nigeria is a country that has settled for diminutive youth development, belligerent and brazen-headed leaders, comatose infrastructure, corruptible and corrupted judicial system, malnutrition-infested families- more than half of Nigerians are underfed and most go to bed hungry- with skyrocketing prices of food and fuel, ailing health and power sectors, over-funded salaries of those in government posts… the list is endless. Even a six-year old, if conscious enough about his world, will know that Nigeria is not in the best of positions to offer anything meaningful to his life when he gets older; but you can imagine how much a make-believe fiction has been so embedded in these little minds such that when asked about their future ambition, their regular reply usually is: ‘’I want to become a doctor’’, or ‘’I like to become engineer’’ or even ‘’I will be a judge and businessman’’. If a parent hears his child say he wants to become a footballer for instance, they become hydra-headed, compounding thoughts in their minds. They forget so easily that there is pride in any and every profession, and every child is special when in his own element.
All is not lost, however. Let’s assume that the older generation (40 and above) is dead and gone. What can our own generation do now? We, as vibrant youths, have to put one thing to heart: the future started yesterday. We are already late. We have to give up evil ideas and idiosyncrasies and take up a fort for the future, which like I said, has started already. This tells us something important: there’s so much we need to do, and ought to have started long ago, but life is not lost, hope is not lost too. Time alone has been a bit lost.
The main thing is that we should think of what we can do for ourselves and the good of our world, not what the world is ready to do for us. There is a wide world with wide arms, waiting to receive our accomplishments and our contributions, and in addition to that, waiting to shower us with accolades when necessary. That’s right. We can live a life that can be eulogized. The two major steps to follow are diligence in duties and following of our passion.
We all have one talent or the other. We can all work assiduously, hand in hand, for the edification of our lives and our society. The harvest, they say, is plentiful, but the labourers in this part of the world are extremely few. My friends, it is time to put our sickle to work.
Change is inevitable. Let us start and learn to make a change. Is there anybody out there to heed my clarion call? I hope so.