I have lived in North America since 2004 (except for few months in Nigeria and Europe in between). I have worked in four countries on 3 continents. I have been lucky to see humans at their highest and lowest conditions in systems where things work and otherwise. The opportunities we lack in Nigeria and how people continue to endure hardships to re-invent the wheel every day is unprecedented. I know the conditions of things when I went to college in Nigeria - overcrowded classrooms, poor quality professors, inadequate labs, the housing system I lived in, lack of scholarship, many of my mates whom we read engineering together have diversified into other things because there was no job and there was no support to start a business of their own, etc. The situation is not different today. There is nothing to encourage any hard working youth to be productive. There is no power; there is no affordable credit to start a business; there is no infrastructure to help you if you have ideas that can change the world; there is corruption everywhere, and to top it all, we battle a culture of religiosity and materialism that places more value on the superficial. Very few are able to break through this mold. And I hear the few who have crossed to the other side - whether abroad or at home siding with Buhari, forgetting what drove them abroad in the first instance. Please go back to Nigeria and make an honest living and be comfortable as you are abroad, and then you will earn the right to support a clueless man that Nigerian youths are lazy.
Because of my experience and reach, I submit I am in a position to say unequivocally that Nigerian youths are not lazy or have a sense of entitlement as posited by the clueless man that does not know what is going on his own household let alone the country he is leading.
How can anyone in his right mind say and generalize that hard-working youth who have been left with the crumbs of national cake are not willing to work? Where are the jobs? I have two brothers, one got a job because a family member helped him to secure teaching job when he was serving in a government (this is not an ideal way people should secure jobs); and the other roam around with second class upper in computer science for 11 years before someone helped him to secure a job this year's February - he was doing photography, he earned a Master in Information Science from UI, yet no job related to his training. There are only two sectors actively hiring in Nigeria today - Banking and Education. Isn't that an irony? It is so because every other sector is in a state of comatose.
The whole institution in Nigeria is rigged and disorganized because of lack of leadership from those who have the gut to call the younger generation lazy. I declare that this is an assault to undermine the younger to not want to fight for what is right. I liken this to the case of an abusive husband who constantly tells his wife, "you are so fat and ugly" who will look in your direction if you leave me. This is callous, selfish and wicked, and the younger ones should not be taken in by these bullish and hellish leaders.
I have tried to start many businesses in Nigeria, and I realize that the system is so rigged that it is difficult to have a thriving business in Nigeria without being present, and even so you have to do untold stuff to make ends meet. In 2016 it took me 5 visits to my bank to change the pin on my online account. Interest rate is untouchable if you want to start a business; there is no constant electricity; and you need to have a job to afford a reliable internet service; it is a walk to the moon to get a business license and white collar jobs have shrunk by over 3 million since Buhari took office in 2015. Any youth who survive in this system should be credited. It is a difficult and hostile environment moreso foreign investors have left in drove since Buhari. The reason for the Nigerian environment lies with the ruling class - do you know Buhari has been in 3 past government in different capacities - Obasanjo in the 1970s, his coup in 1983, Abacha as PTF Director in 1990s and now in 2015 - 18. Buhari is 75, will be 76 when he asks for another term and would be 80 years when he lives if he sees the term to the end. Buhari barely passed the secondary school exam, in a country where we have so many sound intellectuals with an outstanding record of achievement in public and private sectors, we are being ruled by clueless people because they have religious, ethnic and military backing? Enough!!! - In 2019, Nigerian youths who have been deprived should stand up to contest positions and be ready to vote their conscience. This is one chance we have before Nigeria crumbles completely.
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