by Shola Oshunkeye

As the nation totters dangerously on the brink of an economic collapse, fuelled by official corruption and dwindling oil revenue, the Daniels of our world wouldn’t see hope.  All they see are diminishing opportunities.

For Daniel Oikhena, the 15-year-old pupil of Ogbe Junior Secondary School, Benin, who flew in the wheel compartment of an Arik flight from the Edo State capital to Lagos, penultimate week, there is no limit to which a restless, roving mind can dream.

Like his peers in this impressionable stage of their life, he had a vivid dream of what life should be. His dream was to migrate to the United States, to pursue his own American dream. He chased the dream with vigour, and flew to the ‘destination’ in an extraordinary manner. But he landed, not in America, his dream destination and the Land of Opportunity, but in Lagos, a city that is seriously struggling to regain its lost splendour.

Although that daredevil adventure turned him into an instant celebrity of some sort, it almost earned him a ticket to the morgue. The dream almost drove him to hell but for God’s matchless grace upon his life. With the adventure, and subsequent events, Boy Daniel strolled into the front pages of national newspapers and became an important news subject in the broadcast and electronic media. Even, the social media.

Suddenly, everybody wanted to read his story. Suddenly, governors are showing interest in him, with scholarship offers in tow. Suddenly, too, his father, whose wife (Daniel’s mother), had accused of abandoning them, resurfaced, and pledged to take care of Daniel and his siblings.

Daniel’s visit to the ‘lion’s den’ is, no doubt, a compelling story. But the import of the near-catastrophe on our conscience, as individuals and as a nation, is of utmost significance. Despite the transience of dreams, the boy’s fantasy raises a lot of questions about the state of our nation; and the premium we place on our children, our tomorrow.

First of all, why would a 15-year-old think that his destiny and progress in life is located in a country 9,500 kilometres away? How did the boy outwit airport security and smuggled himself into the aircraft’s wheel compartment? Did he achieve the ‘feat’ alone or was he aided? How was it that nothing in the airplane’s system pinpointed the ‘strange object’ in its nose wheel compartment? We can go on and on.

Despite the hype by the administration’s megaphones that the incumbent government has transformed Nigeria to an eldorado, life, in reality, holds little hope for the millions of our youths who are either out of school or are scrounging the streets for survival, years after graduating from college. The education system is plagued with inadequate funding, surfeit of dilapidated infrastructure, and lack of equipment to aid learning. This is not to mention the dearth of committed teachers and instructors to inspire students.

At every forum, President Goodluck Jonathan and his economic team love to inundate citizens about how healthy the economic is doing. They roll out esoteric figures to demonstrate to justify their claim. They tell us that Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP, expanded by 6.72 percent in the second quarter of 2013. They tell us that from 2005 to 2013, our country’s GDP growth rate averaged 6.8 percent, reaching an all-time high of 8.6 percent in December 2010; and a record low of 4.5 percent in March 2009.

On paper, the figures look good. They sound pleasant to the ears. And naturally, they should inspire hope. But the situation on ground reveals a perplexing contrast between those flowery statistics and the welfare of the people. More Nigerians join the employment market every day. Poverty soars. Even by official statistics, the unemployment rate galloped from 12 percent of the working age population in 2006 to 24 percent in 2011.

These facts are backed by the World Bank which stated in its May 2013 ‘Nigeria Economic Report’ that, “Poverty rates remain high in Nigeria, particularly in rural areas. These rates declined between 2003-2004 and 2009-2010, although not nearly as fast as would be expected from the pace of economic growth in the country.

“While the officially reported growth rates of GDP well exceed population growth in the country, the pace of poverty reduction does not, this implies that the number of poor Nigerians living below the poverty line has grown measurably.”

The evidences of this are too vivid to miss. Most homes are falling apart on account of the inability of breadwinners to provide basic necessities of life. The population of street kids spirals by the day. Unguarded boys take to diverse crimes. Girls, even housewives, prostitute to ‘maintain’ themselves and sustain their families. Separation and divorce rates increase daily.

As the nation totters dangerously on the brink of an economic collapse, fuelled by official corruption and dwindling oil revenue, the Daniels of our world wouldn’t see hope.  All they see are diminishing opportunities. All they see is a Nigeria that is misgoverned, riddled with corruption, and presents slim or zero opportunity for them to actualize their dreams. They couldn’t see any shred of evidence to support the claims by the political elite that they are toiling day and night to make life better, richer and fuller for citizens.

As long as this ugly trend continues, the Daniels of our country would continue to stowaway in wheel compartments of aircraft. They would continue to risk the deadly adventure of crossing the Sahara Desert to Libya. They would not stop scrambling for the dangerous boat link, across the Mediterranean, to southern Europe. It would not matter to them if they sail or sink. It would not matter to them if they have to sweep and sleep in train or bus stations to survive.

If Daniel Oikhena had succeeded in stowing away to America, as he had dreamed, we would, by now, have been singing his dirge. But thank God for keeping him alive and safe. However, for us not to have another Daniel strutting into the lion’s den, the Jonathan Administration must overhaul his transformation agenda to induce tangible, positive change. The administration must create opportunities and not shrink them. It must inspire hope, not diminish it. President Jonathan must dissipate less energy on the politics of 2015, and get back to work. His government must embark on child-friendly initiatives aimed at inculcating true nationalism and positive engagements in our youths.

That way, the lure for sojourn in foreign lands would diminish among them. To help the youths resist the lure of life in Britain and America, our president must inspire hope. His actions must give Nigerians tangible reasons for them to want to live and die for their fatherland.

God bless Nigeria.

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Read this article in the Sun Newspapers

 

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