The government appears smarter
than the contemporary Nigerian youths (students inclusive) who are obviously
overwhelmed by different intractable challenges of life.. Strictly speaking, when
the government discovered that the youths, particularly the students, have
become a ‘clog’ in the seeming seamless administration of the country, it began
intimidating the students by proscribing Students Unions at the slightest
provocation and opportunity through its channels. It planted its surrogates as
Student leaders who are of unalloyed loyalty both to the government-selected
Vice-Chancellors of the Federal and State-owned Universities, and the
government itself. This was the beginning of the strangulation of virile
students Unionism in Nigeria. Student Unions all over the campuses in Nigeria
have been significantly weakened by this deadly ploy. They have become mere
surrogates of the school authorities whose rights are censored and mortgaged
with the conspiracy of the government. The Unions therefore can now be best
described as mere extensions of the school authorities.
As incapacitated as the students
unions had become, the students themselves have devised an alternative route to
project themselves in their dimming light of relevance. Consequently, they find
expressions in cults and cultism. Cultism today has taken the place of
intellectualism for which students were known. Students have now engaged in
several bloody escapades to either express their grievances or show of
superiority over rival cults. The intellectual acumen and constructive
arguments for which they were feared have been thrown to the dogs. No more
intellectualism, but cultism. Students hack themselves to death in the name of
cultism and as a show of superiority of one cult over the other. Before this
societal and academic decadence on campuses, students embarked on researches on
topical issues and presented academic papers within and outside the campuses,
under the enviable supervision of proficient and disciplined lecturers. But all
these seem to have withered away today. The government has technically
strangulated the once virile unionism on campuses so as to get away with their
obnoxious policies and programmes which may not impact positively on the
public.
In the process of time, the
students eventually graduate from the institutions of learning to join the larger
society and face the reality of life the government has prepared ahead of them.
Meanwhile, they had already been weakened to their foundations in their school
days and are left with no definite direction of life so far. The graduate is
now a hollow piece, empty, dearth of the enthusiasm of a youth and a graduate.
He is already frustrated and sapped upon his completion of the National Youth
Service Corps (NYSC) now mockingly translated as Now Your Suffering Continues (NYSC).
He is psychologically drained, and left to wander the streets with tired brain
and a gloomy future. He is left therefore with no option than to look up to the
same oppressive government who is also the major determinant of his dimmed
future. He is unavoidably conditioned to accept WHATEVER is thrown at him by
the government in particular and the society in general. This is the picture of
a Nigerian youth – a graduate.
To further deflate the virility
of the youths, the economy of the country is structured to favour only the
strong and mighty in the society – the bourgeoisie. Adopting the Machiavellian
style of leadership where the ruled have to be strangulated and brought to
their knees so that the ruler appear strong, and benevolent to his people, the
economy is designed for the welfare of the bourgeoisie and their cronies in the
society. The economic policies have been stiffened, in collaboration with some
international organizations, to place the youths, being the agile population,
into a tight corner in terms of their ability to secure gainful employment. The
essence of this is to ensure mass unemployment with its attendant frustration
and unavoidable strangulation of hope. The unemployment saga is a deliberate
design to ensure that the rich get richer and the poor get rapidly poorer. In
this seeming debacle, whoever among the youths is fortunate to be offered a job
either by the government or the private sector counts him extremely fortunate. There
is a strong link between the actors in the public and the private sectors of
the economy. They are one and the same in their mode and factors of production
- agents of oppression and suppression of the employees, the proletariats. What
only differentiates this duo is their domain.
The deployment of the
Machiavellian tactics of rulership is essentially to bring the youths
completely to their knees, as earlier submitted, so that the government can
command their unalloyed support of its policies and programmes with little or
no resistance from them. Therefore, for an employed youth to secure and sustain
his job, he must be extremely loyal to his employment policies irrespective of
the designed, of course to enslave him.
I have always argued that the monies looted
and embezzled by government officials (past and present) from public coffers,
when aggregated and properly utilized, can provide gainful employment even to
the last Youth Corper discharged from the NYSC scheme just now. This is to say
the least. Therefore, to accentuate this degradation, and maintain the
dichotomy between the rich and the poor, corruption has to be institutionalized
in the country. Attempts to fight
corruption in Nigeria have been seriously resisted even by some in the ruling
class itself. I did not personally expect less, anyway, not with the hypocrisy stand
displayed by Nigeria’s National parliament in the fight against corruption. All
these tactics are targeted to frustrate the youths whose present and future
lives are regimented by these mischievous elites. The youths are a threat to
the elites, and therefore they must be ‘strangled’.
Most times where the youths are
eventually fortunate to be offered a job in private or public organizations,
such employees are placed as Contract Staff of the organization. A contract
staff is a member of an organization who merely brandishes his identity card of
that organization but he is actually subjected to slavish conditions of
employment in that organiation. He is only entitled to his defined salary. He
is not entitled to pensions, promotions, housing allowance and other benefits
the full staff members stand to enjoy in the same organization. His entitlements
are entirely subjected to the benevolence or malevolence of the employer. He
has no right to join the Labour Union if the organization has one. He has no
severance package at the end of his service to that organization no matter how
long he may have meritoriously served. He can be sacked at anytime with
ignominy. While this is obviously against the labour laws of Nigeria, the
umbrella trade Unions of the country, that is, the Nigeria Labour Congress
(NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) which ought to fight for the rights
and welfare of the employees suffering anti-labour laws and policies of the
government are, unfortunately, part of the conspiracy to oppress the employees. They keep mute in such cases, except on
issues which bother in their favour.
The pittance that is paid as
salaries with its accompanying enslaving conditions of work has further
depleted the self-worth of an average Nigerian youth who is grossly
under-employed. While the bourgeoisie
fattens up on daily basis using the lives and blood of the youths, the youths
on the contrary are gradually yet steadily deflating in size and hope. He has
been deflated, silenced and defeated! This is where the youths have been placed:
psychologically paralyzed and economically impoverished! The future of the
youths in this circumstance is bleak because they have been rendered powerless
and stripped of the versatility of life.
There can be a way out of this
orchestrated and well articulated system of oppression. The solution rests on
the youths to aggregate themselves and have a potent, united voice against all
these societal ills. They can express themselves legitimately through
revitalized students’ unionism. This is key factor. The youths should
collaborate with the civil and human rights organizations as channels of
expressions to make their inputs in the governance of this country we call our own.
This is one of the ways the youths can get liberty from the chains and shackles
of these bourgeoisies. The youths across the country can mobilize themselves
through various social media platform and ‘confront’ the government through
peaceful and persistent mass protests across the country. This method was
effectively deployed in Egypt in the recent past and it worked.
Except the youths rise up and
place their destinies on the line, the oppression will continue. But we can
change the status-quo from NOW.
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