03/10/2020
THE NIGERIA YOUTH PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES FACE AFTER 60 YEARS OF OUR INDEPENDENCE, AND THE YOUTH ENGAGEMENT DURING THE ADVENT OF COVID-19.
Published from the Nigeria Youth Headquarters NYCSRF Director General Office Hon. Chief Amb Vincent Anthony Ubani to reflect the growth and development of our youth in these sixty years diamond Independence anniversary of our country Nigeria.
Published on the 1st October, 2020.
Introduction:-
Leadership is wisdom, knowledge and experience with understanding once you lack this you will only force yourself into leadership but you can't lead well because only God gives this gift and only God choose who is a leaders or King a man made King or leaders can't perform excellently. This why youths should work between your capacity and allow those with high capabilities to present future for millions to benefits not all about audio promises from politicians, but a real template to ensure the rights of millions of youths to be secure which this is a collective duties of the three arms of the Government and the masses both companies multi National 3%, international 2% and national companies 1% to ensure this map out 3,2,1% annual income using the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to channel towards the development of millions of Nigeria youths nationwide through the passage of the Umbrella Body Powering Every Nigeria Young persons youths and students Nationwide including Mother's young parents Project Bill Nigeria Youth Corporate Social Responsibility Fund NYCSRF at NASS and Presidency into law becomes Paramount for our nation to achieve the peace and unity and control the agitation in our country the only way to achieve this division in our country leading to agitation is to keep the youth busy and for NYCSRF to become a Commission or Agency attached to Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development with Federal Ministry of Health this will help our nation achieve Development of the youths in millions and as well lift millions of youths out of poverty and change their mindsets from commiting crimes and address insecurity in our country and also help the country to build a standard first hand respond first aid in our country using the Code Red H2H and D2D operations Youth Joint Task Force on Covid-19 grassroot mobilizations teams to accomplish the major assignment.
This why In 2017, leaders of Nigeria youths Organizations both from National Youth Council NYCN and National Youth Ambassador of Peace and Change NYAPC and National Association of Nigeria Students NANS and many others came together at the Youth House to sign an Memorandum of Understanding MOU that consulted the Umbrella Body Powering all this Organizations about 84 Organizations to represent as the Umbrella Body Powering Every Nigeria Young persons youths and students Nationwide including Mother's young parents with a Primary assignment to secure their rights in the Federation with the Motto Youth Rights in the Federation.
The Umbrella Body Powering Every Nigeria Young persons youths and students Nationwide including Mother's young parents between the ages of 18 to 45 has been in control of the Nigeria Youth Headquarters since the 2017 to date and has often represent the interest of Nigeria youths and students Nationwide including Mother's young parents, the NYCSRF has presented her Bill both to the NASS, Presidency and State Government, the NYCSRF was at the Roundtable Discussion on Youth unemployment and underdevelopment in the Senate floor and also presented solution to address the high rates of unemployment and underdevelopment affecting our youths and nation which lead to high rate of insecurity and crimes in our society.
NYCSRF consulted as the Nigeria Youth Headquarters Umbrella Body that will only be operating under the recognitions of the Federal Government and State Government the 3 arms of Government with one Request to Pass the NYCSRF into law as a commission or Agency to generate revenue strictly for the Development of Nigeria youths and students Nationwide including Mother's young parents the NYCSRF has continue to represent and discharge their primary assignment and are currently working with the Government in top priority concern areas that affects our youths and students Nationwide including Mother's young parents with the masses upto date under the leadership of the Director General at the Nigeria Youth Headquarters office in the Federal Secretariat FCT Abuja and are in constant communication and engagement with the Government through the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF).
The prospect of Nigerian youth in the span of 60yrs right from the inception of our Independence cannot be overemphasized.
Majority of those that fought for our Independence were youths with brilliant ideology.
From the West we had the likes of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the premier of Western region, Sir Adetokumbo Ademola ( the first indegenus Chief justice of the federation), Sir Ladoke Akintola(deputy premier of Western region), renown lawyers like Bode Thomas, Remi Fani Kayode( father of our former aviation Minister), FRM Williams just to mention a few, who transformed the western Nigeria to Haven through commercial Agriculture and superlative intellectualism.
With the exportation and sales of Cocoa, Awolowo and his team built the Magnificent cocoa house, cocoa board, Obafemi Awolowo University, western region television station( the first television station in Africa) and so many other land mark achievements that conspicuous and evident to see.
From the East, we had the likes of Nnamdi Azikiwe( popularly called Zik of Africa) the premier of Eastern region, who through is youthful enthusiasm brought about the first news paper called ' the African pilot' and also went on to initiate so many other developmental projects in the east. Other personality profile amongst the youths in the Eastern region were the likes Ozumba Mbadiwe( member of the parliament who formulated the mantra " men of timber and caliber", Uwanfor Orizu( first Senate president).
Also from the mid-west was the likes of Anthony Enahoro, who moved the motion for Independence in 1956, Festus Okotieboh ( the flamboyant finance minister) etc.
Up north was the premier of northern region, Sir Ahmadu bello, the first prime minister of Nigeria, Sir Tafawa balewa, Nigerian envoys to the UN, Alhaji Shehu shagari, Maitama Sule, Alhaji Kashim Ibrahim etc.
Our founding fathers of Independence were youths and they developed the country through Agriculture, mineral resources and later crude oil ( which was discovered in 1956 in ohibiri, present day bayelsa).
Then, each region looked in ward to make use of their natural endowment in bringing infrastructural development and life basic amenities to the comfort of their people; schools, water corporation, hydroelectric power supply ( from Kainji dam), General hospitals, were all built.
Regional system of government brought about competition amongst the regions which in turn leads to ideology in perspective and also transcends into intellectual profundity and as such gave birth to researches and developments of infrastructural and implementation of basic amenities.
Meritocracy was the order of the day. During these period, the youth of pre and post Independence had ideologies that further enhance their sincerity towards a better Nigeria.
There is a saying that ‘the enemy of my enemy has automatically become my alley’. Just as we all know that the fight against terrorism in this country has brought unity among the ethnic group alongside with all religious organizations.
During the pre-independence era of this country, the push for independence in 1954-1956 and the reality of Nigeria being a sovereign entity brought together the likes of Awolowo, Zik of Africa, Ahmadu Bello, etc, whom were predominant youth before and during the struggle for independence.
It’s been observed and demographically proven globally and statistics from world recognized organizations has shown that life threatening crises always initiates the world bodies to (against all odds) come together in order to combat all forms of familiar threat.
Corona virus epidemic popularly known as Covid-19 was introduced into Nigeria in February, 2020 or there about. Since the inception, the pandemic has dealt a lot of devastating blows on the nation’s economy, not leaving out any sector.
Ab initio, the advent of Covid-19, Nigeria and Nigerians had been battling with banditry, cattle rustling, kidnapping, armed robbery, human trafficking, illegal migrants, corrupt practices in all the tiers of government, etc. All of these are as the result of the “survival of the fittest” syndrome.
The presence and population of youth in a nation is an indicator to the futuristic disposition of such country in terms of economy, security and politics.
Hitherto till now, the advent of Covid-19 has changed the mindsets and orientation of the youth and geared it towards the consciousness of “staying safe” and “being alive” even in the absence of life’s basic necessity.
Peace (both durable and active) and development are parameters that will always complement each other. Wherever there is peace, implementing capital, capacity, human and all other forms of developments come to play, because a peaceful environment attracts external investors, manufacturing sectors, basic amenities/infrastructural milieu just to mention a few.
While the absence of peace is a reversal of all these necessities that makes life comfortable.
Since 1999 to date our youth has been facing same challenges from one failed scheme to another from different administrations as the schemes all ends in one direction (failed scheme) for youth engagement, in this current 2015-2023 President Muhammadu Buhari administration nothing has proofing different as of yet, as the Government brought Npower scheme which from record it has about 500,000 Volunteers youth on a 30,000 stipends payroll and today this scheme Batch A and B is almost about to return to the street as the administration is about to dissolve this batches for a new batch C of which about 5.1 million Volunteers youth has already apply for this new batch C as applicants and the administration may be only taking not morethan 300,000 this show the types of challenges our youth faced today and this 500,000 Npower batch A and B is still on their way to be jobless and be in the unemployed market of our nation with a huge population of over 200 million and a high rate of Unemployment and Underdevelopment. Expect Mr President and his administration shall seize the nationwide agitation and cry out of our youth and Npower volunteers batch A and B for the administration of Mr President to absorb this batch A and B into Government job by placing them in all Ministries, Departments and Agencies and the truth remains this is the only solution to reduce the high increase in unemployment and underdevelopment affecting our youths, as the possibility for the Government to engage even more than this numbers of youths into Government job and even reduce the elderly ones in civil service is justifiable and achievable, for our nation to have youths who can move our country and her growth into the 21st century standard of running a government.
Our youth engagement during the advent of Covid-19, in comparison to youth engagement before Covid-19 poses certain disparities that are latent. The advent and wide spread of Covid-19 brought about orientation of the youth towards life sustainable ventures in order to stay safe and impede the spread of the dreaded virus. Such life sustainable ventures fall under:
a) Volunteer scheme (Volunteer Task Force on Covid-19 advocacy).
b) Corporate Social Responsibility and Palliative Scheme
c) Youth advocacy for better Nigeria scheme.
d) Youth advocacy for the realization of SDGs scheme, etc.
Nigerian Youth Corporate Social Responsibility Fund is a vanguard youth Umbrella Body Powering Every Nigeria Young persons youths and students Nationwide including Mother's young parents that established the “National Youth Joint Task force on Covid-19 advocacy” with a current operation Code Red H2H and D2D Protocol Guardline to ensure the stop of the spread of Covid-19 in the rural areas and our communities.
It is a volunteering task assisting the government to contain the dreaded diseases from spreading despite it has already crippled the nation’s economy.
Nigerian Youth Corporate Social Responsibility Fund (NYCSRF) has over 154, 800 members Volunteers staff's (200 in each of the 774 LGAs), saddled with the commitment of voluntarily advocating for the “stay home-stay safe” the Presidentail Task Force PTF on Covid-19 protocol rules, to prevent people from contacting the corona virus.
Methodology: The volunteers received physical training from the primary health care Health Educators stationed in each local government and States, and daily Trainings online from NYCSRF Health Experts so as to be intellectually equipped for the task after which they solicit for preventive working materials such as: nose mask, hands sanitizers, and literature flyers to be distributed during the course of advocacy.
In the course of meeting up with the demand of the advocacy, the major institutional stake holders were contacted for support and synergy;
• Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC)
• National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA)
• Federal ministry of Health (FMH), and
• The Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 (PTF)
But no concrete response has been given from any of these institutions apart from their letters of response indicating their interest to synergize with the youth on the task force.
The extent at which the youth have gone from the youth account and individually spending in sustaining the advocacy without being given any financial push from the State and Federal Government is so lengthy that we are closer to achieving the venture of driving Covid-19 out of Nigeria and away from turning back from our self initiated mandate.
During this period of Covid-19, a lot of prices are being paid by the country and its citizens to stay alive such as, keeping away from work place, staying indoors, keeping social distance, keeping and maintaining a high level of hygiene, avoiding crowded places, restriction to market areas, inter-city restriction, international restriction, etc.
All of these restrictions posed a gargantuan threat to the country’s economy, especially in terms of the food basket. There were scarcity of food supply. So many families going hungry as movement for daily needs was restricted, this also is an antidote to stay alive.
Youth organizations like: NYCN, CYCFGN, NYAPC, ECOSOCC, WAANSA and many others all organs of NYCSRF, decided on their own volitions to initiate the concept of providing succor popularly known as palliatives to alleviate the sufferings of the citizens. These youth organs volunteered their time and resources to provide palliatives to cushion the suffering of some citizens during the heat of Covid-19. This was done so as to complement the effort of the government.
Youth advocacy for a better Nigeria was also part of the youth activities during the Covid-19 saga.
So many youth organizations felt that the way and manner the financial resources allocated to fight Covid-19 was not transparent enough, therefore the stake holders should do the needful. Fewer lives would have been lost to the pandemic if actually the money and Palliatives allocated was judicially spent.
Also, some citizens lost their lives due to starvation and hunger because of the “no movement” directives of the government. Therefore lives were not only lost to corona virus alone but hunger and starvation, and lack of proactive medical attention (First Aid).
New Nigeria Is Possible Movement (NNIPM), Youth Crisis Awareness and Peace Forum (YCAPF), Nigerian Youth Corporate Social Responsibility Fund (NYCSRF), and other youth organizations have called for the government’s attention to see to the major epidemic bedeviling our country (corrupt practices).
In as much as life is sacrosanct, the stake holders and the institutions that have been saddled with the responsibility of the Covid-19 should be transparent, forthright and walk away from all forms of miscellaneous corrupt practices.
Youth proponent for the realization of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) became much prominent during this Covid-19 in that there was a great increase in the poverty index of the citizens. Poverty eradication is, though a gradual process but was part of the “SDGs” of Mr. President.
Looking at the overview of progress from the economic recovery and growth plan (ERGP), there are deep structural flaws that have constrained inclusive economic growth; foremost, measured according to the $1.90 per day per capital purchasing power parity, the poverty line, it is estimated that 42.8 % of Nigerians are living in extreme poverty with the demographic growth indicating 5.5 people per household members who are unable to find employment, access health care facilities, or keep their children in school to acquire knowledge and social skills.
So it was against this backdrop that the president declared to lift 100 million Nigerians (especially the youth) out of poverty as his top priority in the decade of action leading up to 2030.
It is on this note that the Nigerian youth organs pledged their unflinching support to Mr. President for the realization / implementation and advocacy of the Sustainable development goals (SDGs). the NYCSRF goals to achieve remains to use the Code Red H2H and D2D operations to serve our country and people as the proactive medical attention (First Aid) in the 774 LGAs and has plans to station our trained Volunteers as representatives in all the 119,973 polling units, about 9,288 Wards, at the 774 Local govt. Areas and the 36 states with FCT.
This shall be achieve before the end of this year with the support of the Federal Government through the organs like NCDC, NPHCDA, FMHADMSD, FMH and PTF and we shall run the testing of this struture in the upcoming election in Edo State and Ondo State in collaboration with INEC as the NYCSRF Volunteers shall serve as the INEC Clinic Health Department proactive medical attention (First Aid) agents in the 119,973 polling units of the Federation which we shall compliments the Health areas of the INEC during elections in Nigeria.
Our message from the Nigeria Youth Headquarters to the youth is that we should set aside, hate, envy and jealousy and stop crimes in our country to build a foundation that can bring a change to our country and people by supporting the government in areas we can, mostly to make use of our large population and Human Resources to bring a huge impact to our country, China use their Human resources to develop their country and is also time we should use our huge human resources to transform Nigeria in all areas to our dreams.
And our message to the Government is for the Federal Government and States to use this opportunity set up that NYCSRF Volunteers youths to implement a proactive medical attention (First Aid) as counter respond teams of the Nigeria Youth in the 119,973 polling units which this struture shall serve multi purpose task for the government both in areas of insecurity, accidents and health etc as fast respond force within the 774 LGAs Nationwide.
We now call on the Federal Government through the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and Chairman of the Presidentail Task Force on Covid-19 and National Coordinator PTF to urgently send a MEMO to the Head of service and published in our nation dailies newspapers on the Code Red H2H and D2D operations introductions and recognitions notice to masses and all Ministries, Departments and Agencies most importantly to all relevant authorities in control to combat Covid-19 to urgently take measures to comply to all Request and demands that will keep the Nigeria Youth Joint Task Force Operation going and see we have active Patrol teams in all strategies areas in the Federation.
Since thousands of Volunteers Nationwide working voluntary since March to date at this stage are all waiting for the FMH, PTF and SGF to do the final authentication of our operations that will be published in dailies National Newspapers which will serve as recommendation and Introduction letter from Presidency ( Federal Government) that will make all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and security agencies like Nigeria Police Force NPF DSS and others, Including to all states government's plus FCT and LGAs with all extablishments in Nigeria multi National, international and National Companies, business environments such as schools, markets, plazes, parks etc to give us the recognitions we deserve to effects our work, with the nation's cooperation and supports to achieve success in our activities without any distraction or conflicts.
Conclusively, I would like to torch light on the decadence that have plunge our great country into the dark hour we are experiencing.
Foremost, is the "Monarchism"; this is where a leader/ politicians paves way for their children to take their position/place while leaving the political scene and it goes on and on. This does not justify merit and educational intelligence in both economic and political environment of this country.
Secondly is conditioning the public service environment in such that money/bribe must be paid before your interest of service would be considered.
Also is the buying of public/private service job.
So much importance is attached to the value of money rather than intellectual capacity cm meritocracy that can metamorphose into industrial liberation and infrastructural development which in turn will generate fund through exportation and revenue generated internally.
RECOMMENDATION
The government should foremost encourage meritocracy in all the facets of the economy. Youths that are brilliant and innovative should be given the opportunity to showcase their talent for development.
Entrepreneurship and volunteering youth organizations should be considered for a commissions/agencies cos there are so many developmental ground that needed to be covered.
Political position should no longer be used as a means of compensation.
Youth should be engaged based on their qualifications/specialization and not by personal intimacy ( who knows who).
Youth need to be de-radicalised from all forms of disorientation that has undermine their core life value.
On this note we can be sure of creating and leaving a better Nigeria dreamt by our founding fathers whom happens to be in their youthful days.
Just like the saying goes " if you do not meet a good Nigeria, then make sure you build and leave a better Nigeria"
Published from the Nigeria Youth Headquarters Director General Office.
