Nigerian youths: Are they truly the leaders of tomorrow?

Babalola yusuf Abiola

Parents listen to your children papapa, we are the leaders or tomorrow papapa, try to pay our school fees and give us sound education papapa.

 Do you ever have the privileged to sing the above song while growing up or while in crèche; if you did congratulations; but if not, you have certainly missed something while growing up.

However, am pretty sure that even though you missed this song while growing up you must one way or the other have the privilege to sing this song either as a nursery school teacher or perhaps sing it after one of your younger ones or children who are either in playgroup or kindergarten in a nursery schools both in the country.

Subsequently, in other to let us know the challenges that await us in the future our teacher will always want us to sing this song every morning before the start of the day’s work in class and will advise us to take our study seriously because we are the future leaders whose future of the country lies in its hand.

Also, they kept telling us that young shall grow and the old shall leave the stage for us but while the young have grown to the point of being the leaders in developed world as well as yesterday youths being the leaders of today the reverse was the case in Nigeria as yesterdays youths who is over 50 years is still being regarded as the leaders of tomorrow.

With what is happening in the country I was forced to asked my mum that with the old brigade still in control and not relinquishing power to the youth and with the youth still being referred to as future leader at aged 50 then it is either the future is not here or that my teacher who predicted me being the leader of tomorrow was not correct with his statement made a mistake.

Yea, the old are getting older, and the young are getting matured and ready to take over from the them but they failed to relinquish their position to the youth claiming they are old but not tired.

However, this ugly trend of the old not ready to leave the stage can be found in all facet of the country, both the public, political arena private and even the political arena not left out of this.

The old who are supposed to be enjoying their retirement with their grand children at home are seen either running after government contracts or after juicy appointment in government thus losing their live while serving their pockets and not the country..

What about the private sectors, people that are supposed to be retired in other for fresh graduates to be employed are seen holding on to their position for reasons best known to them.

Last year, I had a discussion with one of my brothers who happened to be a principal in one of the leading secondary schools in my area about this issue and he has this to say.

According to him, “My brother worked with a multinational company in Abuja and has been there for over ten years, he told me that most of his senior colleagues that should have retired 3 years ago are still in service” I asked him for the reasons why they are still there instead of giving unemployed graduate the chance and he said, “they decided to stay because they want to bring in their children into the system, they want their children to continue from where they stopped.

I asked why, and he answered, “Because should they leave the job without helping their children it will be pretty difficult for them to be relevant in that company or their won’t be anybody to cover their tracks when they have gone  thereby making it difficult for their children to get into the company after their departure

He continued, “Also, those who do not know what will become of them after retirement do stay back in office for at least three years to be fully prepared for life after retirement,” he concluded.

Also, like those in the private sectors, workers in the public service are seen exploiting the loop holes of created by the government inability to have an efficient database to resort to the reduction of their age at any available time through the use of affidavit sworn in various courts across the country at different time.

This make a director or permanent secretary in the civil service who is supposed to retire at a certain age spend six or seven illegally unmerited acquired years in the civil service.

Also, the political arena is not left as they are the most culpable in this act. While they cited inexperience or ingenuousness on the side of the youth as the reason for them to be on stage then comes the question of how they expected the youth to learn when they refuse to leave the stage for them.

This old brigade are seen in political functions or running around the corridor of power lobbying for one political position to the other or vying for political position when it is pretty sure that they have little time to spend on earth surface though am not God neither am I a soothsayer but with their age and health status one do not need a soothsayer to know that this people are closer to the departure lounge.

Some of these old men who still seek relevance in the political cycle can be found in the top political class in the country, they include: Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, the PDP National Chairman; Chief Tony Anenih,Chairman, PDP Board of Trustee who also doubles as the Chairman of the Nigeria Port Authority; Dr Christopher Kolade chairman of the subsidy reinvestment programme (SURE-P); (Rtd) General Muhammodu Buhari former presidential candidate of the Congress For Progressive Change(CPC), to mention but a few.

Also, some of their folk who refused to retire from active politics died running after government contracts or being a political God father, they also include: Chief Olusola Saraki, former senate leader; Alhaji Lamidi Adeshina. Former governor of Oyo State; Adebayo Adefarati, Presidential Candidate of the Alliance for Democracy in the 2007 election; Odimegbu Ojukwu, Biafran warlord and others numerous to mention.

In a better society where youths are truly seen as the leaders of tomorrow, the above mentioned people are not supposed to die running after government contract or deciding on who to rule the nation or their various state, they are supposed to be referred to as senior citizens who must have retired out of public life in other to spend the remainder of their life with their family and sometimes give advice to young politician who come to them for one.

Arch. Bishop Desmond Tutu; Former President Nelson Mandela of South African; Bill Clinton, Former President of the United States are practical examples of leaders who voluntarily retired out of public life because they believed that the teeming South African youths must be given chance to continue from where they stopped thus given them opportunity to spend the remainder of their life with their family.

But in the case of Nigeria, the men of yesteryears who are nearer to the departure lounge believed that leadership starts at age 70 also with them seeing the youth as inexperienced to take over from them they thus prefer to sit tight on their seat with no recourse to leave. 

Nevertheless, since the old never wanted to leave the stage and they are getting older every day, should we tell our teachers to modify the nursery rhyme to oh lord! The young shall grow and one day become leaders of tomorrow, but since the Elders refuse to leave the stage for us, then the young shall grow and the old shall die!