Editorial: Achieving Good Governance And Development In Nigeria: Youth As A Transformative Tool

By Abdul Rasaq

To begin, it does not take the consultation of the herbalist neither do the fortune teller is necessary to be involved, for us to affirm that certainly, the youths of nowadays are the breadcrumbs left beside the scene by our leaders without involving them into the game. They rather turn them to be victims instead of saviours, thugs rather than good and reputable leaders. Some of the politicians, considered youths as so called “instrumentalists” during the elections, expose them to hard drugs just to win the mantle of leadership? Who exactly are you to govern? The human being you turned to be carnivore or the fox you trained, to devour people? Then, our responsibilities must be properly known to us, or rather we will continue to destroy the home of this generation and many generations to come. It’s high time to rose up and shun off ignorance, about what exactly our roles are, in achieving good governance, leadership and development in Nigeria?

Moving on, Politics is a nature of man, youths are the bone and blood of the entire society where man lives. In accordance with what Kofi Annan said, “A society that cut off its youth severs its lifeline”. Active participation in political issues should be our top priority. A nation cannot be built overnight, as Rome was not built in a day. We can’t step into politics in a day without knowing what it entails. Training ourselves for the future before it comes with a fiery luggage. As the truth, encapsulated in the fifth line of our National Anthem, “The labour of our heroes past shall never be in pain”. The hope of getting the pain into gain, for the pain not be in vain, the youths of nowadays, need to be totally involve in politics. We need to take up the mantle of leadership and serve as a lubricant for the wheels of progress propelling forward to the wonderland, aiming of being a catalyst for pragmatic governance.

Time to initiate our hidden talent, walking out our ideas in every aspects of life and placing our thoughts on the parachute of development so as to build and develop our nation.  We need some measure of Innovation, creativity and fresh vigour among the youth. Youths are critical thinkers of the society, and capable of initiating different projects mainly to solve the needs of the people rather than waiting all day, why not devising a plan rather than relying on so called “Government”? Definitely, it really start from our mindset as a youths in aiming for development.

Conclusively, drawing a plan is different from implementing the plan. Our youths should be given the time to rise. Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “We cannot always build the future for our youths, but we can build our youths for the future”. Describing the responsibility of youths in development of the nation is like stating the responsibility of father to son.