ENGAGING THE YOUTH IN ACTIVE POLITICS AS WE MARK
2017 INTERNATIONAL YOUTH DAY
By Fred Doc Nwaozor
The last time I painstakingly
checked, 12th of August every year remained the International Youth
Day. This implies that today, Saturday August 12, the 2017 anniversary of the
said event is globally being commemorated. This year’s theme is ‘Youth building
peace’.
The International Youth Day is annually held on August 12 to celebrate
the achievements of the world’s youth and to encourage their participation in
enhancing global society. It also aims to promote ways to engage them in
becoming more actively involved in making positive contributions in their
respective communities.
The idea for International Youth
Day was proposed in 1991 by young people who were gathered in Vienna, Austria
for the first session of the United Nations (UN) World Youth Forum. The forum
recommended that an International Youth Day should be declared, especially for
fund-raising and promotional purposes to support the United Nations Youth Fund
in partnership with various youth organizations.
In 1998, a resolution proclaiming
August 12 as International Youth Day was adopted during the World Conference of
Ministers Responsible for Youth Affairs. That recommendation was later endorsed
in 1999 by the UN General Assembly. The International Youth Day was first
observed in the year 2000; one of the highlights of the event was the
presentation of the United Nations’ World Youth Awards to the eight Latin
American and Caribbean youth and youth-related organizations in Panama City.
It’s therefore needless to state that this year’s commemoration represents the
eighteenth edition of the worthwhile event.
It is generally noted that the
youth is the main productive class of any nation, and Nigeria is not an exception. In the same vein, anyone in a youthful stage sees
himself as one of the major parts of the engine room of any society he belongs;
this perception is not unconnected with the teachings of nature, which is obviously
ubiquitous.
It suffices to say that any existing society that
cannot boast of meaningful youths is not unlike a tree that is being deprived
of its major root. This is the reason any country that has lost its youths to
social vices lives like a blind man as well as invariably sleeps with both eyes
open.
Though the definition of the youth regarding
the age bracket varies from one school of thought to another; but in a
nutshell, it could be defined as a group of young people who are in their
adulthood stage. Thus, a youth is simply an adult or a fully grown person that
is young.
Considering the above definition,
you would agree to the fact that the youth is indeed the engine room of any
existing society. To this end, it is pathetic and devastating, to assert the least,
to see a society comprising irrational youths, or a group of young people that
do not know their left from their right.
It is not anymore news that presently, about eighty percent (80%) of the
overall youths in most countries in the world, particularly developing nations,
have intensely derailed thereby constituting series of inconsequential
cacophonies as well as societal menace in all nooks and crannies. An average member of such a misled group keeps
believing – albeit ignorantly – that he/she is being manipulated by a certain
set of individuals, without knowing that his future lies in his bare hand.
In Nigeria, for instance, during the
post-colonial era and thereabouts, virtually all the political positions in the
country were fully occupied by the youth who were mostly in their twenties
ranging from Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello,
Chief Tafawa Balewa, Generals Murtala Mohammed, Theophilus Danjuma, Ibrahim
Babagida, Sani Abacha, Shehu Musa Yar’adua, Aguiyi Ironsi, Chukwuemeka
Odumegu-Ojukwu, Olusegun Obasanjo, and Mohammadu Buhari, among many others too
numerous to mention.
But today, the reverse is totally the case. You
would hardly see a youth in his thirties becoming a commissioner in his/her
home state, let alone occupying a ministerial position. Unequivocally, the
ongoing profound apathy coupled with complete loss of vision among most of the
new generational youths who occupy about one-third of the country’s population,
calls for an outcry.
As Nigeria joins the global
community to mark the 2017 International Youth Day, I’m soliciting for
awareness-raising campaigns to ensure that all the youths are fully sensitized
in order to revive the ongoing alarming rate of moral decadence, docility,
laxity, and mediocrity found among them.
Against this backdrop, I call on the
governments, non-governmental bodies, religious institutions, the civil
society, the mass media, and what have you, to join hands in this enticing
crusade so that in no distant time Nigeria can boast of a society filled with
only resourceful and conscience-driven youths. Our youths must be meant to
realize that it is indeed high time power is taken from this set of ‘old’
people currently occupying the seat of power in various jurisdictions.
We can contribute our respective quotas by
initiating or sponsoring both social and academic activities such as youth
seminars cum conferences on education and empowerment, concerts promoting the youth both home and in the Diaspora as well as various sporting events,
parades and mobile exhibitions that will showcase young people’s accomplishments
with a view to thoroughly sensitizing the mindset of the said group on their
civic responsibilities, rights and privileges.
As the next electioneering era is fast approaching, it is not needful to
reiterate that the overall Nigerian youths are bound to arise at such a
critical time like this. We can’t continue to procrastinate because a stitch in
time, they say, saves nine. Think about it!
Comrade Nwaozor, political analyst & rights activist,
is the Executive Director, Docfred Resource Hub - Owerri.
frednwaozor@gmail.com
Edited by: Rostrum
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