It is often the case that young Nigerians complain about economic hardship. In fact, that has become the norm now; so much so that it seems as if nothing will ever work in Nigeria again. Everyone has to some extent lost hope in the leadership of the country and have chosen to pursue their own everyday hustle in order to cover daily expenses.
If you think about it though, you will see that the Nigerian economy has suffered severely from gross mismanagement and full-tolerance for corruption. The idea that hard work does not pay off has crept into the minds of Nigerians everywhere. The reason for this is that working hard means taking the hard road to life. And because of the way the Nigerian economy is run, hard work hardly pays off, so people get frustrated quietly easily and look for other cheaper, faster and less ethical ways to achieve their goals.
Additionally, productivity and efficiency is at an all time low. Take the Nigerian public sector for example; there are no effective ways to monitor or track the work that civil servants do. Therefore, you find that not much is done or produced from these sectors year-in year-out.
So What is the problem?
The problem here is that young Nigerians are inducted everyday into these existing systems that do not work. First of all, members of the Nigerian youth population should be able to trace their professional progress to a time in the future when they must have found a suitable career path accompanied with a pension plan for when they retire. However, as it is now, it would be fair to argue that young Nigerians have no idea what the future holds for them.
Don’t get me wrong, its is a good thing to become part of the current Nigerian system as things are right now. But young Nigerians must begin to employ new strategies to become the change that they want to see in their nearest future. For now however, Nigerians continue to suffer from the negative neighborhood effect, where everyone denies causing the problem, and hence refutes any suggestion to become part of the solution.
This process of denial and refutation is cyclic in nature and presents many challenges for the future of Nigeria. To surmount this sort of challenge, the youth must take charge of their affairs and hold themselves responsible for both their actions and inactions.
What can the youth do you ask? Well, many things.
First, they must realize that they are the leaders of tomorrow. I say this because whether the youth like it or not, they will lead Nigeria in some capacity in the nearest future. When they do, they must understand that their responsibility is to build a nation and not to squander its resources.
Secondly, the youth must begin now to build their personal and professional capacities. Every experience they have should and must be viewed as a learning experience. Professional growth is like the one most important thing young Nigerians should focus on. More importantly, they should put a lot of their energy into learning skills that challenge them to change the status quo. Learning these kind of skills will force them to think outside of the box and find solutions to their problems instead of passing it on to others nonchalantly.
Finally, it doesn’t help at all to transfer aggression and responsibility to others. Young Nigerians must learn to be patient with themselves and their learning experiences. It takes time to pick up a skill and master it; and without patience and hard work, frustration and desperation is sure to kick in. And once frustration kicks in, it is hard to recover and start and all over again. So it does make sense to give yourself time to learn, grow, and execute efficiently and effectively.
In all truth, young Nigerians are the future of tomorrow. All hope is not lost indeed as Nigerian is desperately in need of entirely new ways of thinking and problem solving.