HONEST ASSESSMENT
Well, there's no rule to blogging right.. Oh! I love my pen and my mind so much.
I'll be sharing with us the NAKED HARDCORE truth in this post
Please read with an open mind.
INTRODUCTION
My beautiful Africa is the continent of my dreams.
Source
Like a mother, she's very beautiful with rich heritage, culture, vegetation, natural resources, human resources, good sunlight. An almost perfect continent- because we've everything that other sister continents don't have.
- Africa is a continent blessed by God and one would thought that with so many endowments, why is this continent kissed by God struggling.
- She's blessed but by gave birth to many CRAWLING GIANTS (Counties). Africa is heart broken because her children are not representing her interests well as well as the value she stands for.
- I don't know of any other crawling giants, but I'll address my own country NIGERIA here; using the analogy to relate to other crawling offsprings of Africa.
TIME TO WEIGH YOU NIGERIA
- Brace yourself Nigeria, because it's time to weigh you critically.
"Fela the famous Nigeria music King once said: say the truth and die or refuse to say the truth and you'll die too one day with regrets"..
- Nigeria is said to be the Giant of Africa. A title bestowed upon her in response to the abundance of wealth that she posses. A wealth so great that I call it the Canaan (a land flowing with milk and honey) land of Africa😀.
She has 36 children and blessed with gold, silver, diamond, crude oil, good arable lands, iron, cotton,zinc, etc... She has it all, but why is she still struggling and living below expectation??.
A beautiful question for you all
MY LOGICAL ANSWERS WITH FACTS
(1). Our founding fathers; God bless them, but they were very myopic, short sighted, too much in a hurry.
They fought a good fight of freedom- but with impure intentions and their succession plan was flawed. That's a story for another day though
Leadership is for men and not boys. Men will brace up to carry the mantle of SERVANTHOOD, while boys will look only at what to gain, not what they can give... Well that's the origin of our problem and thereafter came the civil war (6th July 1967 to 15th January 1970).
That reduced the nation to a life time of tension and regrets.
Now Africa and Nigeria at large have gone 10 steps backwards in the growth and development curve in every aspect.
Now Nigeria and the Africa continent is synonymous to POVERTY. A self dependent country as God made her so is not tagged with lack and want.
If more than 70% of her citizens cannot afford 2 to 3 square meals a day, then you'll agree with me that the whole country is POOR. This is because a country is defined by her citizens, not the landmass or natural resources.
(2). We're now in a country were our politicians and leaders play the sheep game to canvass for votes and immediately turn into lions once elected.
You give empty promises which are often times left unfilled, but their families are feeding fat from the countries wealth.
For God sake, we elected you guys in to serve. You swore an oath to cause a change that we'll be happy about.. Honour the oath of your office
Oh yes! We see d change, but it's is grossly in you and your family- one sided
You buy new cars, move with entourage, build mansions, appear in functions to spray money that is not for you to spend selfishly.
You fly around in private jets, change clothes and enforce new policies to siphon money. Now the country is grossly in debt, can't pay workers, pensioners, no health security, no benefits etc..
This wasn't what we signed up for, honourable politicians. Where is your honour?????... Still searching for it though
There's no money to pay workers but you pay yourself and cohorts
A den of thieves you've become
(3). We're the crawling giant of Africa because 70% of our work force (youths) are unemployed..
- Unemployment keeps rising like soaked garri. Lol!. Stop calling us the leaders of tomorrow when you're not showing any concern. The implication is that you want babies, hungry leaders in the future. Educated but not empowered..
UNEMPLOYMENT is the mother of all social vices and a pointer that the country is going backwards.
We were told a very fat lie that EDUCATION will solve everything and make us a plus to our country.
Well now we've gone to school, subjected to cruel teaching conditions, taught with obsolete curriculum that was last review God knows when. Imagine after spending minimum 4years you come out and there's no job for you...
Some have Masters degree but are still a slave to debt and proverty 😖
SourceStatistics has it that 1.8 million youths enter into the labour market yearly In Nigeria, but less than 30% gets job while the rest are left to roam about
According to WORLD BANK, Africa has the highest YOUTH BULGE in the world and this number is expected to get to 42.5 million between 2010 and 2020...
Brilliant, the question is where will you fix these youths?
Kelvin Balogun- president of Coca cola, Central, East and West Africa said this and I quote him;
"Africa churs out 10 million graduates each year from over 668 universities but there are no jobs for more than half of them"
Now that we've gone to school like you forced us to, to employ us you say most of our graduates are not EMPLOYABLE. I hate this statement with so much passion. The irony of the whole issue is that our educational system made it so, by teaching us irrelevant things; of which 70% is therotical and the remaining 30% is alternative to pratical. Why will they be employable?..
I'm going to agree with you on this Mr Mark Zuckerberg, who said College Degree is worthless.
College training doesn't prepare you for the real world and make you to depend on books instead of making your potential your passion. It makes sense right?
Why not employ those you can and train them for 6 months. I'm sure they'll pick up
I once went for an interview were almost 500 graduates came fully dressed in suit. They packed us in one hall like sardines but after the exercise, only 16 was picked.
The most annoying thing is that no question was asked during the screening exercise. So which criteria did they use to employ the 16 they took?. Connection is more valued than merit now.. When did we get to this state of decay??.
**Oh! My sweet country...**
Why will the youths not seek asylum in other countries when there's nothing here for them?
Crime is on the rise because of UNEMPLOYMENT. The armed robbers, kidnappers and fraudsters out there were pushed into doing what they're doing because of frustration and hunger.
I'm not in support of crime one bit but lets be logical in our reasoning
Our government pumps billions of naira to fight insurgence. In 2018, $1billion have been budgeted to fight insurgence and crime. That's why crime will not end because the approach is mudane and hollow.
Address unemployment and you've won the battle and certainly my trust.
MY ADVICE TO THE GOVERNMENT IN NIGERIA
(1). Honour the vows you swore before entering into office. Which is to improve the standard of living and defend your people. Rearrange your priorities
(2). Our leaders should be selfless, impartial and dispense their duties with uprightness of heart in obedience to God.
(3). Nigeria and Africa at large must wake up because other continents are living us.
Stop dwelling on past glories and wake up
(4). Improve the standard of education and learn to teach us about the business side of the knowledge we're acquiring.
Stop preparing us for White collar jobs and gives us other options
Empower graduates with grants to start up something business wise
Train us to embrace entrepreneurship as a life style
This assessment is from a true citizen of Africa and Nigeria. 😁