It is yet to be on record that any of the developed countries of the world have attained growth and development technologically, economically and politically without given due attention and investing sufficient resources to develop its working populace through which other resources can be effectively harnessed, develop and utilized for its overall development. This working populace are mostly the youths who are generally considered as the corner stone of any society because they make up the bulk of the most vibrant, energetic and productive sector of the population.
The concept of youth can be defined as all the people within a specific age group. However there is no uniform definition that cut across the African states as a result of cultural and historical differences. For example, the African Youth Charter that was signed in Banjul Gambia by African states defined youth as someone between 15 and 35 years of age. The National Youth Development Policy of Nigeria defined youth as any person from the ages of 12 to 35 years. In Uganda the National Youth Council Statute 1993 defined youth to be those persons of either sex between the ages of 18 to 30.For the Youth Policy in Zimbabwe, a youth is someone from the ages of 10 to 30.while the authorities in Cameroon defined it as anyone from the ages of 14 to 25. Whatever is the definition, it is generally held that a youth is young, vibrant and energetic as well as the engine room of a country’s growth, development and continuity. We run into intense problem if we allow this statistical differences to be an issue, rather it should merely represent the dynamism of Africa and how different states can employ different strategies to take care of their youths.
Africa has a large number of youths running into hundreds of millions which if properly attended to and judiciously utilized can transform this continent i called ‘the capital of the world’s natural resources’ to its deserve economic, technological and political status in the world. This continent, possesses all that it requires to reach the height of growth and development like other great nations of the world, but it is unfortunately beddable by myriad of man-made challenges. Among these challenges is the long period of neglect that the African youth has suffered and still continues to suffer from the insensitivity of our leaders leaving him susceptible to social, economic and political crimes. The world that is suppose to give him a sense of belonging and security is the same world that left him in the lurch. As days gone by and the insensitivity of the leaders keep growing to an alarming proportion, these young men and women who are already fagged with the statusquo are desperate for change, and how that change comes , they don’t care. This account to why African streets and neighbourhoods are besieged by thieves, beggars, quacks, assassins, fighting, pick-pockets and prostitutes.
Without fear of contradiction, African has remain a sleeping giant not only because of the failure of the leadership to provide the people with the much needed peace, infrastructural development and an enabling environment for both local and foreign investors, but also because it fails to harness and develop not only its rich deposit of natural resources, but also its abundant human resources which had through the years engendered political instability, economic retrogression, social devaluation of moral values as well as infrastructural impoverishment and decay.The United Nations Secretery General, Banki-Moone made a sagacious statement in respect to the cardinal position of the youths in a country in the International youth Day on the 11th of August
2010.He said, ‘todays challenging social, economic and environment warrant a special focus on youth.’This statement couldn’t have being better said at the right time especially to African leaders who have a notorious record of neglecting the very people who rallied, voted and helped them ascent to power.It is with deep regret and a total shame to the senselessness, double-crossing and shenanigans of the leadership that poverty, illiteracy and unemployment are allowed so much authority to devastate, dehumanized and emasculate the continents’s greatest resource,youth.
The federal ministry of statistics in Nigeria reported in 2009 that school leavers accounted for about 60 percent of all unemployed persons in the country.About 70 percent of them are below 40 years of age, while the national unemployment rate is now estimated at about 15percent.The World Fact book in its 2009 report on employment rate in the countries of the world, reported that South-Africa’s unemployment rate is estimated to be around 25.2 percent, in Kenya it is 40 percent, Zimbabwe has 95.0 percent, Liberia 85.0 percent while Senegal battles with 48.0 percent.These alarming statistics go on and on around all the African states without any appropriate and tangible twenty first century approach to salvage this cradle of human civilization from an embarrassing and humiliating failure.Recently experts on youth and development from Ghana, Kenya, Mali and Gambia met and discussed the growing problems of youth unemployment in Africa.The high level meeting was chaired by the world bank vice-president for African region,Obiageli Ezekwesili. She said,’the profile of unemployed youth has to enter the way we think,just as gender has.youth need to be effectively targeted in everything we do, so they will have a stake in the future.’Bravo your excellentcy! Only hope they are listening.Good policies and great ideas has not being the problem of Africa,it is their implementation that always snuffed them out when they start or when they just began.Youths should be targeted as a matter of national survival, they should not be seen as a problem, they should become the priority of any well meaning leader who understand the true meaning of growth and development. Our leaders need to come to the understanding of the common truth in nation transformation and future just as the former German authoritarian junta had.He once said,’the future of the german nation depends on its youth.’ This is undoubtedly true, whether they like it or not the African youth is the builder and the sustainer of the continent and the earlier they give him the deserve attention the better because terrorism exist anywhere there is misery.Africa is the continent where growth and development is down while poverty and its attendant consequence are up.
The time is ripe and right for all and sundry to alter these self-inflicted damages which i believe should start with the baptism of our leaders, so that after that needed cleansing they will come out renewed, rehabilitated and with revelation that will succour them in being good shepherds. Through this necessary exercise of mind and mental upliftment, their soul, mind and body will be now sensitive and responsive to the needs and aspirations of the youths and indeed the entire populace. Parents and society should never assumed they are out of the picture in redressing the continents challenges because every leader is a son or daughter of a particular family and of a particular society, and if what i know as the true African values such as respect for elders still exist,parents and society can influence what happen in leadership.No leader without a family and no family exist outside of a given society, they are partners in progress, but the society is greater than the family and the family greater than the son.Therefore, the son must adhere to what his parents are saying to him which is what the society said to the parents. If so be the case,the society will address the family and it will have to listen and do according to the general interest of all; in turn the family will address the son and he or she will have to listen and do exactly according to the dictates of all or be sanction.This way, the family system ensures that leaders do what they suppose to do.Unfortunately however, this is never the case as society now fears the big wealthy family and the family fears its big and wealthy son;a clear distortion and disengagement from what is right and appropriate.Parents and society should therefore be genuinely patriotic and responsive to their roles in nation building.
On the other hand,youths need to realise that nobody can quarantee them a promising and a secured future. The fact remains that no government has ever been created or made to put money in people's hands. What good government does is to create the enabling environment so that those who wish to succeed will succeed.Therefore, every youth must stand up and be responsive to his/her life and not wasting valuable time criticising the government and blaming it for the present unfortunate state. In as much as the government is responsible for being where you are today you will be responsible for staying there,and such responce to an established problem never make any sense.What gets one to where he/she is going lies within the person nobody else. Ophrah Winfrey, the billionaire black American television host once said , 'It does not matter who you are where you are coming from the ability to triumph begins with you.Always.’ This is the truth and nothing but the truth and the consciousness of this will help appropriate anybody's thinking and action in the right direction.Most African countries if not all have gained independence some 40 to 50 years ago, yet their people are yawning and yearning for job to do and food to eat.I don’t think wisdom will advise one to keep waiting on them even if they will later do something.It has got to a time you know that you are the architect and driver of your life, how you do it depends on you.As far as your success is concern leave the government out of the picture, they are not design to meet up with such responsibility;it is your job.So be wise,get busy,no time to waste and start doing something that will enable you acquire skills and competence in order to create the much needed value for your growth. Without these, you may not be carried alone in the twenty first century world. Wallace D. Wattle in his book, ‘The Science of Getting Rich’ says that ‘you can render to God and humanity no greater service than to make the most of yourself.’ This statement reflects what Evan Wadango, a Kenyan youth is doing for himself and others. Evan designed and created a solar laterns which he distributes free to poor thousands of Kenyan families. I got to know this great guy in the 2010 top CNN heroes, a programme designed by CNN to honour great men and women who did and are still doing outstanding things to help humanity. Nobody espect you to be like Evans , but you should be able to re-examine yourself and act like him by developing your potentials through knowing your gift, which is or are the lists of things you can do with the least possible effort and going foreward to be train in order to acquire skills, competence and learning how you can turn your gift to money making venture- by so doing you open doors and windows of opportunities for yourself, there by bringing the dignity of the human person in you.
Finally, youths as a matter of urgency need to strive towards developing their potentials and become useful for themselves and their generation.It is totally out of reasonable senses and counter-productive for any youth to take on prostitution, thievery, kidnapping, arm-robbery or any kind of negative trait with the name of helping himself or herself; that is not self-development it is self-destruction.Al Duncan, a world renowned motivational speaker made it clear that ‘self-development is the cultivation of your potentials.’Our heroe and father, Nelson Mandella unambiguously states that, ‘education is the great engine to personal development.’ Youths fighting in places like Somalia and Congo, killing and maiming their brothers and raping their sisters and mothers may not escape poverty, retardation, illiteracy and backwardness except they mutate from their present disposition. Today, Congo is describe as the rape capital of the world by a senior UN official because the youths choose to fight instead of making efforts to create a happy and prosperous country. All the atrocities are undertaking by youths from an artificial problem created by the leadership to continue to impoverish the people and enrich themselves.Imagine where these youths refuse to take on guns and matchets.Only the war in Congo claimed over 5.4 million people accourding to a UN report.As things stands today,the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that Congo has the second lowest norminal GDP per capita and the World Bank report has it that Congo is the poorest country in the world. Essentially therefore, no act of doing wrong can make things right.
