Our national leaders have failed us.
Our elders have failed us.
Nigerian youths preferred President Muhammadu Buhari, because they were frustrated and tired of the failures of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), the former ruling party that failed to secure the future of Nigerian youths who have lost more lives than other Nigerians since the insurgency of the Boko Haram terrorists worsened from 2009 to date.
Millions of Nigerian youths have been left unemployed after secondary school education without admission into tertiary institutions and after graduation from tertiary institutions, because the corrupt and incompetent administrations of the 16 years rule of the PDP failed to provide enough jobs for them. The annual National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme does not create jobs for the hundreds of thousands of Nigerian graduates and the N74bn allocated to NYSC Scheme annually is shared by all the contractors who have been the major beneficiaries of the scheme that many see as nothing more than a scam.
It is still a mystery to me how God has been providing for millions of unemployed Nigerian youths and they have not become a time bomb of frustrations that would have exploded even before the end of the maladministration of the PDP government.
Nigeria had an oil boom and became the largest African economy in the last 6 years, but millions of Nigerian youths were jobless whilst the former President of Nigeria misappropriated billions of dollars from the oil boom and shared multimillion dollar contracts among cronies, loyalists and other beneficiaries of their malevolent oligarchy. The former President used the Amnesty programme and the camouflage of Christian churches in conceit and deceit to fool the rest of Nigerians who scrambled over the crumbs of leftovers from the national cake.
I still wonder how Nigerian youths have been coping and surviving in spite of their frustrations by corrupt national leaders and elders who have failed them.
Leadership is best by example and any nation without leaders worthy of emulation is a failed state.
Nigerian youths during the 16 years of the PDP rule were not sure of their security and welfare since the government failed to secure their future and it was as if their fate was sealed, because they could not plan for the future in a climate of fear with incessant terrorist attacks killing hundreds of innocent youths and no guaranty of regular employment, yet they did not give up hope and came up with various means and ways of survival using their skills and talents to make ends meet no matter the odds against them. They made Nollywood the largest home entertainment film industry in Africa; launched numerous IT startups and rebooted and boosted the Nigerian music industry to make it the most profitable in Africa. All these contributed to what made Nigeria's GDP to be rebased from about USD 270 billion to USD 510 billion with the unprecedented increase of about 90% from economic gains in telecommunications, movies, and retail which were previously not captured or underreported. As a result of the rebasing, Nigeria is now the largest country in Africa and 26 largest in the world as reported by PwC Nigeria and other leading organizations, including the World Bank. Nigerian youths made this happen and not the oil marketers, fuel subsidy contractors and oil blocks moguls.
Nigerian youths have held on to the torch of the Nigerian Dream and kept the Nigerian flag flying in the midst of the political conflicts of the Nigerian crisis from the Niger Delta to Lake Chad.
They are the real heroes in the nation building of a New Nigeria in the leadership of Africa.
~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima, aka "Orikinla Osinachi".
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