Nigeria youth, what can we do better?

My people use to say that; doctors can only prescribe treatment for ailments they understood. Is sweet to know that youths are no longer #TooYoungToRun (to some extent), so elections are going to be open races henceforth. As a young person who seeks to register alternatives, what will you do differently? What are your own […]

My people use to say that; doctors can only prescribe treatment for ailments they understood.

Is sweet to know that youths are no longer #TooYoungToRun (to some extent), so elections are going to be open races henceforth. As a young person who seeks to register alternatives, what will you do differently? What are your own ideas to promote economic or social development? And how much do you know about governance system?

Now the answers to these questions aren’t buried in well-crafted rhetoric. If they were, the APC lead administration would have solved all Nigeria’s problems by now. The answers are rather subjects of abundant information and deep knowledge of past and present, which help project a realistic future.

Sometimes in early 2016, a young businessman who had just become Kogi state governor by chance was granting his first interview. Hopes were high and people cheered as he dished out rhetoric, promises and ideas of policies. At the end of the interview, I shook my head and hung my hopes back in their wardrobes. The abysmal theory of leadership buried beneath his ideology and his poor understanding the state’s challenges was very disappointing. As duly observed, he took less than 5months to prove his incompetency to the general public.

The moral of the story is that with an overdose of power and deficiency of wisdom, beautiful intentions can become evil plots; kind hearted heroes can easily become ruthless villains; and humble public servants can become the nightmare of their people.

This is exactly why as young people who crave positive change, we must commit to understand those systems or ideologies we seek to abolish. We must be on the hunt to fully digest the details of why things went sideways, before attempting to fix it. So many people with noble intentions had tried and failed woefully in the past due to insufficient knowledge and lack of understanding, we shouldn’t ply the same route.

Our nation’s fate is at stake and we can’t really afford second chances. Sentiments and passion are very good motivations to a course, but knowledge, objectivity and creativity always get the job done perfectly. Before you hate Obasanjo, before you insult Jonathan, before you kick against Buhari; pay attention to their paths and figure out their mistakes. Only then can we rise above their limitations.

The only way to be better than our past is by understanding and learning from them.

Idris M. Kabir, [email protected]