I attended the meeting of the Oyo state PDP youths today. It was a place to be. Inspite of my tight schedule today, I put the meeting on the top list of my “to do” list for two reasons. One, to honour the State Youth leader, Comrade Adekola Adeoye, whose daily prayers and best wishes always wake me up on a daily basis. He personally insisted that, I must attend in person and not by proxy. I don’t need to overstress it here that Adekola is a leader who knows his onions and adequately possesses all what it takes to lead. I also graced the meeting to be able to assess the mental preparedness of our youths for the challenges ahead. Both reasons, to me, are of equal importance.
Before entering the gathering of the effusively delighted true party lovers, I had a premonition of what I was likely to meet. My prescience about meeting people who would bicker about the nomination of the new Commissioner outside the PDP group box, came to pass. As I heard them fulming and fulminating about what someone called a “warped process” of selecting a young Seun Fakorede with likelihood of becoming the next commissioner of and for the youth without the imprimatur of the youths body. What readily came to my mind was the Kant’s Theory of Interest.
Without attempting to open a flesh wound, which Adekola, Engineer Olatunji, The Speaker, Rt Hon. Debo Ogundoyin etal have treated and covered up in their speeches, let me be quick to say that no art can weave together the conflicting and disparate individual interests to form a whole. The hard fact, which is a bitter truth, is that, a state can not be impaled for not bowing to a class or group’s interest, it evolved, to quote David Hume , “to pursue the public interest so as to enhance socio political and economic development as well as facilitate social peace”.
In a nutshell, the overriding interest and most critical in a social setting is public interest.
The Youths globally are moving in a fast celerity to catch up with the larger goals that are right in their front. This in minds, It will be presumptuous to put a huge expectations on a government that is focusing on diverse group; the youth, the old, the strong, the weak, the disadvantage, curio and other segments of the social strata.
From my own perspective, the only way the youths can wean themselves away from over reliance on the Government is to walk the path of self actualisation which a philosopher Anthony Gidddens call “cement of social life”.
As I adverted in my good will message at the meeting, the youths should do well to self examine themselves and ask the pertinent question “what can I do differently in investing in social capital, enhancing social cooperation and boosting personal psychic needs”.
In pursuit of it’s members self discovery, the youth leaders should focus on embarking on how to expand the horizon of members, do talents discovery and fixing each according to his or her specialised areas. Training and re-training of members to harness their potentials and be guided to hone the talents for productive use is also vital. Empowerment of the youths through micro finance and other pecuniary support from the Government is also key. The youth leadership should create a North Star that will provide a compass to guide the navigation of individual members.
It’s obvious for a new emphasis that only youths who tower above equals can fit for competition and will be head hunted in the ever shrinking global markets.
Government can not, as it doesn’t have the capacity to, improve social conditions of the teeming youth through employment or appointment. Lol, there is but only ONE Commissioner for Youth /Sports. No decibel of noise or estranging views of any youth organization can make it two.
2019 Global Youth Forum in Korea explored areas for shaping up moral and innovative youths. It’s a good material for researchers.
Oyo State Youths should also attempt working on the actualisation of African charter on Youths as envisaged in the 2006 charter in wich Nigeria is a member.
Lastly, as we have agreed that, the hero lies in us as a youth, let’s start to disabuse our minds of being “sorted” based on our political affiliation.
We should begin to increase our self worth, by learning new skills, building our strengths. Through these, we will begin to thrive rather than managing to survive.
I hope and pray that GSM administration will put the issues concerning Oyo state youths in it’s front burner as His Excellency has always promised.
Up Youths!!!
