Japheth Omojuwa: Nigeria’s youth – A generation’s foggy future? (Y! FrontPage)

by Japheth Omojuwa

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That future can be in our hands but first we must take it from those who are destroying it. Taking it is our hands. We are the light that must set the fog of tomorrow aside. That tomorrow started yesterday.

The future, our own future as a generation is not in our hands, it is in the hands of those who will stop at nothing to undermine it. It would be acceptable if in holding our future in trust for us, they know and understand the consequence of each decision they take on our behalf. There would be no point discussing this now foggy future without looking at options available to us as a generation to turn that future around. We are not in doubt about the picture of our tomorrow as a generation, those who will not be here to share in the cost of their actions are already painting an undesirable picture, but we can turn this around.

If the future of our generation appears foggy, at least two things are suggested by this image; a cloudy, unpredictable future or that the future is not bright. Seeing as the future is very much predictable, because it is only the third in a thread that includes the past and present, we will have to settle with the more obvious imagery of the absence of brightness. In clear terms, for now, the future of our generation is not bright. We cannot change this reality if at first we don’t define it properly. In defining it, we must appreciate where we are coming from, take a look at where we are and sincerely project the future that continues to be crafted by our past and the realities of today.

If today is a product of yesterday and tomorrow a consequence of today and yesterday, we will need no prophets to tell us about our collective tomorrow. As things stand today, whatever we have seen in terms of our growing but jobless economy, insecurity, inadequate infrastructure, dilapidated educational system, youth unemployment, corruption (and stealing), bigotry and nepotism, etc., things will be a lot worse tomorrow if we don’t stem the tide of our generation’s destruction.

Stemming this tide is why we are here. Stemming this tide is what we must do. Taking responsibility for our own future is no longer up for debate if we want to repaint this future. But we cannot repaint a future that is not in our hands, so then, first things first, how do we take back our generation’s future? Until the canvas of our future is in our hands, those who have painted it in fog and darkness will not stop until they are done with their destructive job. This is of course not the time to cry about tomorrow, it is time to rewrite it. We cannot do anything about yesterday but we are already doing to tomorrow what caused today’s failures. It is time to shift this paradigm; it is time for our generation to save tomorrow.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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