|
Celebrating Youth Day in N/Delta By Maxwell James Since the United Nations General Assembly adopted the World Programme of Action for Youth in 1995, there has not been any significant change in the life of an average youth all over the world especially in Nigeria where the life of the youth class is rough, mix up and horrendously strangulating. This calls for a renewed commitment as all negative activities are today associated with the youth particularly in the Niger Delta. It is also a common fact that all the lofty goals of the World Programme of Action that were designed 12 years ago still remain a tall dream following recent reports indicating that over 200 million youth are living in poverty, 130 million youth are illiterate, 88 million are unemployed and 10 million young people are living with HIV/AIDS globally. This is bloodcurdling. In the media today, it is argued that too often, youth policy direction is driven by negative stereotypes of young people; including delinquency; drug abuse and violence and other sundry crimes. What seems to be forgotten however is that young people are a positive force for development, peace, and democracy especially for a developing world like Nigeria! I intentionally delayed making comment on this great world event to gauge the mood of the Niger Delta youth in an auspicious occasion like this. This is very important because of the negative impression that youth from this part of the world has generated in the global community. Today from the creeks to the lands, the major issue that dominates any dissenting mind is the obvious acrimony, rancour and unnecessary bickering in the Niger Delta that has been exacerbated by long years of neglect. From my assessment of late, despite the recent ugly and criminal trends of kidnapping in the region, remarkable size of the youth are far from being militants, terrorists, never-do-wells, dropouts, nincompoops and renegades that they seem outwardly.
Taking a glance at the sordid history of the youth struggle in the region, one will agree that the crisis was institutionalised by long years of military incursion as all aspect of our body politic suffered great neglect.
Looking at the scenario above, there is no where in the world where outright denial of peoples’ right and total discrimination engender peaceful co-existence. Looking back, the youth struggle started as a peaceful one. It metamorphosed from peaceful negotiation as it happened during the run-up to Nigeria’s independence, the Lancaster conference and the various constitutional conferences that took place where great Niger Delta minds led by Harold Dappa Biriye made case for the region. That immense effort gave birth to the Willink’s Commission. It was in that occasion that various issues were raised about minority rights, self-determination, social and economic justice being championed by the region today. The struggle, by extension, took a violent turn during the Isaac Adaka Boro era when the use of force became unavoidably compelling following the offhand attitude maintained by the Nigerian state.
It is an inescapable fact that Nigeria has continued to put in abeyance, the pertinent issues bedevilling the region and jettisoning the leading points raised by great sons of the region like Chief Melford Okilo during the 1976 Constituent Assembly – thereby throwing the youth restiveness as a subject of serious debate. As though to add more salt on injury, the pauperisation of the wealth-producing region still subsists in modern day Nigeria. For instance, all effort at ending the youth’s agitation in the region has failed woefully with successive governments not being able to chart a positive way forward. There was a time the paltry 3% allocation from the centre was reduced to 1.5% which gave rise to decades of self-determination and self-assertion struggles led by Kenule Saro Wiwa under the auspices of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) now being led by Ledum Mitee.
In celebrating the world youth day, I recall albeit painfully that the journey of youth movement that started and embedded in the philosophy of non – violence and peacefulness as espoused at the Kaiama declaration of 1998 that also birthed the first youth pressure group, the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), has been criminalised by impious youth hiding under the auspices of Ijaw Youth Struggle – riding on government inaction.
The essential details above have been meticulously recalled to drive home the point that the Niger Delta youth may not feel the impact of world youth day celebration because even the present administration is still groping in the dark as regards how to tackle the region’s problems, what with the tumultuous gunshots, wasting of innocent citizens lives and setting of petrol stations ablaze that rented the air during the week leading to the actual date of Sunday August 12. 2007, that marked the grand finale of the world youth week celebration.
At this juncture, let’s pose a little and ask ourselves pertinent questions. Why has Rivers State suddenly become a hub and safe haven for gangsterism? Is the present administration aware of the enormous damage this present reality has engendered to the inhabitants of Port Harcourt and its environs? Why the state government may not readily have answers for these posers, this peace will hazard a guess as regards the visionlessness of Rivers state government in the area of youth engagement that leads to all the negative tendencies in the garden city with spill over effect on Delta and Bayelsa states. Today all the negative youth activities in the Niger Delta have found abode in Rivers state. Some examples will demonstrate this point.
Delta state has understood the prevailing circumstances and negative consequences of youth restiveness both on human and the economic aspects of the state – swiftly the state engaged the services of reputable nongovernmental organisation (NGO) Academic Associates PeaceWorks (AAPW) to carry out a comprehensive and constructive engagement of the state’s youth via technical and vocational approaches to achieve a complete mindset change and reorientation with militants as target. The pilot programme that has kick–started in Egbokovo community in Warri South local government has identified proactively, the need to provide economic opportunities for the youth in order to engage them positively.
A committee on reopening of schools across the oceanic areas was also set up following closures occasioned by militia activities – ostensibly to give teeth to the administration’s desire to equitably educate the susceptible youth. According to Kinsley Akeni, a committee member, for the first time those communities were willing to partner with government’s efforts at bringing succour to them.
In Bayelsa for example, there was thunderous joy amongst the youth as the Commissioner for Youth, Conflict Resolution and Employment Generation told a gathering of expectant youth in a radio broadcast to mark the day that as part of efforts to give technical skills to the youth as well as consolidate on public private partnership (PPP), government has finalised arrangements to train more than 100 youth in the first instance in Software Development/ICT, computer aided Auto-Mechanic and Furniture Making in India, Germany and China respectively with befitting factories, workshops, and show rooms in Yenagoa to engage them immediately. These also double with the government’s long term plans as they strategise with oil companies and other stakeholders to mop up 11,000 youths off the street within 4 years.
While these and many more efforts are being
done in these two states, the Rivers state government was busy inciting
one cult group against the other, a clear case of how not to manage the
youth. Finally, this shows that there is urgent need to build a synergy of
all youth ministries/agencies/programmes in the troubled region in order
to learn from each others success stories. On the whole, what affects
Rivers state, affects the entire region being the economic heart of the
region. Maxwell James Kpansia – Yenagoa Bayelsa State |