Youths and nation-building in Africa

Africa my Africa! As of this new millennium that began in the year 2000, Africa is still suffocating under the smoldering ruins of underdevelopment, epidemics, political instability – as in the case of Cameroon and Gabon presently. Across the vast Sahara, there are still hundreds of villages where the smokes of brutishness, acute backwardness, and general primitivism are still calligraphing in the majestic sky. We can still see them in the vast regions where drought has manufactured fruitless labors, and where villagers queue every morning to fetch water from a single community well – nothing like borehole.

It is still in Africa, where most men are not enlightened enough to know that polygamy is no more a symbol of greatness, and neither is the battalion of children a sign of fruitfulness when they do not even have the moral and financial standing to meet with the epic responsibility. It is still in Africa, where teenage girls in some remote areas are proud (though some are forced to become) mothers of two or three because they have not been exposed to a better and legitimately pleasurable side of life. It is still in Africa that the people in some places access western medical treatment only once in three or five years from concerned humanitarian organizations who care to look up to the map, and see where such African people are located. It is still in Africa where caregivers from Asia, North-America, Middle East, and Eastern Europe – usually missionaries and businessmen, know most hidden hamlets of the continent, but fellow Africans do not know.

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Africa is not collapsing as a structure that had a concrete standing and existence, nor is it recovering from an epic fall; but Africa is still building an empire that is almost as old as the Homo sapiens of the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania – East Africa. She is still laying one brick upon another to build her long-sought dynasty that was tempered by about 400 years of western plunder and slavery, and later colonialism. She is still fighting to build African societies of contemporary definition. Work is ongoing in different quarries; real nation-builders are still hitting the nails, breaking the rocks and filling out resources for this ancient uncompleted estate. But the work is not done!

Hence, more nation-builders; including youths from this other part of Africa are therefore called to join up. Nation building is a mega project for all and one in every generation. How can youths help? They can help by creating jobs through entrepreneurship. Secondly, they can help in the management of crises in this era of eventualities. Thirdly, they can volunteer in peacekeeping missions and general conflict resolution efforts. They can equally assist in community development projects, even if it is by using ordinary sand to parch damaged roads. They can also help to educate the citizenry on health and governance. A bit here and there, and Africa shall arise!

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