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| H.E. Prince Frank Ukonga-National Chairman DA Democratic Alternative Party |
FRANK UKONGA LECTURE 14: AFRICAN YOUTH DAY: THE IMPERATIVES OF YOUTH DEVELOPMENT TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF DEMOCRACIES: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE- BY PRINCE FRANK UKONGA- PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRANT OF THE NIGERIAN FEDERATION. LECTURE, DELIVERED TO THE AFRICAN YOUTH CONGRESS, TO MARK WORLD YOUTH DAY IN NIGERIA, BENIN CITY ON THE 1st November 2012
TOPIC: – THE IMPERATIVES OF YOUTH DEVELOPMENT TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF DEMOCRACIES: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE-
Fellow compatriots,
I acknowledge the presence of the Chairman of this occasion, important dignitaries and the large presence of youth from across Nigeria in attendance and all protocols observed.
I thank the organizers of this event for inviting me in the capacity of Special Guest of Honor, a position usually reserved for Governors, Presidents and highly achieving personalities of the world and this translates to your endorsement of my Presidential ambition of the Nigerian Federation in the 2015 polls as your gesture have yoked me among the sages. I also express my sincere gratitude for your endorsement and votes in the just concluded Edo Governorship election when I contested alongside with H.E. Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, General Charles Airhiavbere of PDP, Chief Solomon Edebiri of ANPP and other gladiators. I am highly elated and would continue to cherish this great respect and opportunities until the end of time.
I must quickly commend the organizers of this youth retreat and more so that it is coming from the Edo state of the Mid West Region that has a large population of hard-working youth cadre that is unfortunately marginalized in the schemes of things of the Nigerian federalism as in States and Local Government creation. This Edo Youth retreat, also adds strength to the just-concluded Youth and sports development Retreat of President Goodluck Jonathan as well as the South African Youth Retreat organized two weeks ago by the former President of South Africa H.E. Tambo Mbeki. These great leaders of Africa, including my honorable self share similar streams of consciousness about the imperatives of youth development to the advancements of African economies and democracies.
I congratulate the entire youth of Nigeria and Africa at the occasion of the African youth Day as I acknowledge your immense contributions to the liberation of the African continent from the tripartite anti Bellum phenomenology of slavery, colonization, and imperialism and though a lot has been done in this regards to free Africa from various debaucheries, but it is time for another emergence of youth vanguard to further strengthen the struggles against emerging threats to all and sundry of the African Race and inadvertently the global village.
These new emerging threats that threaten all of us in contemporary times are many and camouflage in various garbs and if not checked could be the remote causality of the failure and fatigues of the genuine democratic culture of the African continent and perhaps threaten the growth of democracies on a global perspective.
Prominent among these new problems and perhaps most important is the question of restive youth in Nigeria and across the entire globe caused by youth frustrations as in the aspects of redundancies of joblessness, terrorism, kidnappings, high crimes, prostitution, Aids / HIV pandemic, racism/ tribalism, hunger, homelessness, environmental degradation and climatic catastrophes to mention but a few.
The imperatives of youth development in strengthening emerging democracies of the world cannot be over-emphasized as the youth constitute the majority of the voting demography in Africa and perhaps the entire world. Whence, it is mandatory to focus on positive youth development if Africa and the world must jockey towards sustainable vibrant democratic dispensations.
Positive youth education and empowerment is the panacea to most of these problems which will translate to meaning that more emphasis has to be placed on qualitative education and perhaps to focus attention on a new paradigm shift in our educational systems to practical technical education as advised by the great Black intelligentsia of the African American genre, Booker .T Washington who noted that positive technical education to the peoples of the Black Race on a global basis will tremendously encourage enterprise in the field of self-employment via small and medium scale industries and would generate the spirit of enterprise germane to the greatness of Africans on a global basis. Perhaps at this juncture, we need to revisit these great dissertations of the great African American sage. Basorum MKO Abiola, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Malam Aminu Kano, Dr Namdi Azikiwe, Chief Gabriel Onaivi Ukonga ( Father of Prince Frank Onaivi Ukonga),Chief Antony Enahoro, Chief Olu Falae – Chairman SDMP all support free and qualitative education at all levels to the entire citizens of the world- they are the best Social Democrats Africa ever had.
The leadership of the African continent and all other emerging democracies of the world has to focus more attention on prudent management of human and economic resources of their various Nations addressed towards job creation, support for small and medium scale industries as well as youth and women empowerment through the provision of technical training centers of artesian and encouragements of graduates via provision of seed capital/ start-up capital ; this initiative will ameliorate the current scarcity of jobs on a global basis.
Still, on the leadership question, the aspect of corruption and looting of public and private treasuries of many African countries as well as many emerging democracies of the world has to be checked. This will translate to putting in place various security networks, due process, accountability including international cooperation with other security agencies of the world to help track looted money from these democracies and expose corrupt leaders. The transparency international and other security agencies of the advanced world are doing quite well in tracking cases of money laundering by African leaders and their surrogates but more is required if these frail African democracies are to survive into the 22 century.
In many African countries funds that are meant to train the youth as great leaders of tomorrow are looted away by the leaders. More so funds to create enabling environment for business and enterprise to thrive that will create jobs and improve the overall economy via accelerated infrastructural development are all looted away. Whence African democracies groan under poor electricity generation and distributions, bad roads and highways, poor hospitals and health programs, unsafe airports and colonial backward rail systems and poor aviation infrastructures, poor educational facilities as in some parts of Nigeria for example we have about 10 million Almanjiris youth and children roaming the streets of Nigeria without education( this was remarked by the former Head of State of Nigeria H.E. General Abdulsalami Abubakar) while he also canvassed for a proactive service delivery policy thrust, by the various states and federal governments to the electorate which in fact is below average in international standard practice. H.E. Tambo Mbeki former President of South Africa also chided the leadership of South Africa last week when he was delivering a lecture to commemorate the birthday of the great African sage Oliver Tambo about the new trend in the leadership of African states and in particular South Africa which he claimed is drifting in to a visionless milieu and this is the case of leadership across the entire African countries when view from a wider perspective of the Tambo Mbeki’s streams of consciousness.
The President of the United States of America H.E. Barack Obama while unveiling new Strategic Partnership plans for sub-Saharan Africa in June 2012 noticed that the teaming population of African youth is a great strength to the development of vibrant economic and democratic institutions in Africa if well harnessed. but he noticed that Africa is bogged down by some set of leadership cabals that insists on looting African treasuries, rigging elections, causing confusions , redundancies and other problems that endangers Africa’s economic and democratic prosperities and warned that the United States will not fold its arms and allow any sort of irredentists to ruin the potentials of the African continent, that if well harnessed will be the next economic world power of tomorrow. President Obama is rightly guided and a great friend of the African youth. I agree completely with his candid observations.
It is pertinent to mention quickly that the new trend of the corporate greed of Multinational companies on a global scale is also partly responsible for this global recession causing joblessness, redundancies, and hardship to all and sundry.
At this juncture, it is important to advise the African youths to take the bull by its horns by looking away from the various emerging idiosyncrasies of the African continent and embrace the spirit of hard work and enterprise. Which will translate to invigorating research and development, research and innovations in self-employment, rather than fold hands and be waiting for jobs that are not just available? Some university graduates have been writing applications for the past 10 years after graduation without employment. In one certain advert to employ only 20 people about 12,000 youth showed up in Nigeria. If these set of youth has been adequately industrious they would have noticed this anomaly and stop looking for jobs but invent new ways to get themselves employed through small and medium scale concepts that will employ others. The world's richest man today is bill Gates he has never written an application in his life, he had an idea of making computer soft wares and he pursued the establishment of that concept that is helping the entire human race today.
Same with the late Steve Jobs, Aliko Dangote never wrote an application in his life yet he is perhaps the richest African today employing millions of peoples across the entire world with his ideas and Great Spirit of enterprise, same with Femi Otedola and many others. I have never written an application in my life to work for somebody else, though I have been offered jobs from far and near but I always turned them down aside from consultations and advisory capacities, as I am cognizance that the best thing you can ever do to get up is to have a maximum use of your time and use it judiciously in empowering yourself and that is what is recommended in the books of – The Richest Man in Babylon and -How to Think and Grow Rich by Norman Vincent Pearce. I hope you all will embrace my candid observations and continue to promote the spirit of enterprise via positive technical education and self-employment initiatives and actions.
This my recommendation of self-employment initiatives and actions is a sure way to grow out of the poverty and redundancy trap in Nigeria and Africa, This will grow you to become more financially stable, experienced and confident as a self-made person and you will become less vulnerable and nobody can hire you as a thug to do diabolical evils as in election rigging, suicide bombing, male and female prostitution, stealing, kidnapping, armed robbery, etc.
I must also caution the African youth about the company you keep. Keep away from bad friends and people of shady characters and in fact, report them to the police if you can. If you move with a bad friend, he/ she will eventually drag you into the evil club and their ways. I will also use this opportunity to advise the parent to pay more attention to the upbringing of their children and youth making sure they bring them up as positive great citizens of Nigeria and Africa.
I will advise the Nigerian and African youth to cultivate Godly virtues. To respect and fear God and to relate with one another in the philosophy of St Augustine who noted the imperatives of mankind on earth as addressed to be at peace with God and at concord with fellow mankind. These constitute the very kernel of the golden rules of creation in esoteric knowledge as to do onto others what you will like others to do unto you. This is very necessary for the establishment of democratic cultures the world over. The youth should abhor junk culture order and cultivate sound ethical behavioral standards of the African superlative aesthetics.
I will also advise the Nigeria youth to be cautious of sex. The AID/ HIV diseases are real and it is killing a large population of Nigeria and African youth workforce. In some African countries, up to 35% of the youth are AIDS/ HIV positive and this means AIDS/ HIV has the potential to wipe out an entire generation of youth of Nations who pay lip service to the problems of casual sex. The best way to avoid AIDS/ HIV is through sexual abstinence or if you must have sex then use a condom as the recommended practice of safe sex. Youth must be a life and health to be able to contribute to the development of economic and democratic institutions in Africa and the world at large. I am also advising parents and schools to give positive sex education to the youths.
Though it is imperative to cognize that positive qualitative education and provision of jobs for the larger peoples of the society is the duty of the government through various schemes and policy thrust/budgeting that generates production and employment and that is what we offer at SDMP- Social Democratic Mega Party which is the truly youth friendly progressive party in Nigeria and Africa. Our manifesto offer Nigerians free and qualitative education at all levels, Jobs for all, industrial and agricultural revolution, etc. And I am calling on the entire youth of Nigeria and Africa in generality to support SDMP in coming to power in their various states and local governments as well as in the Federal Government addressed to create job opportunities, strong economies, vibrant democracies in Nigeria and Africa. The long live Federal Republic of Nigeria, Long live Africa.
Prince Frank Onaivi Ukonga
Governorship Candidate, Edo State, 2012 polls.
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