By Aliyu Muhammad Aliyu
Nation-building and community development require the involvement of all stakeholders from all walks of life. The fairs of knowledge and experience from the elderly and zeal and energy from the youth are necessary to achieve any goal. The two categories of patriotic citizens have one thing in common: their and dear ones’ future.
The elderly used to be like the youth with all sorts of dreams, but through experience, they experimented in life to differentiate between what worked from unrealistic emotions. They belong to and master the second industrial revolution powered by crude oil, which replaced the first industrial revolution powered by coal, and is still relevant although in its twilight. Their presence is necessary for effective policy implementation since we did not yet change much. Their generation is still relevant, especially for guiding and checking the excesses of what their youth counterpart would bring with the hope to be realized.
Likewise, the youths’ presence is necessary because of their eagerness to see their world as a better place to enjoy as it used to be for the elderly, having had enough stories of the good old days they never witnessed and long for. Moreover, they are the masters of the third industrial revolution of renewable energy and data the world is turning towards. Therefore, they should be mainly involved in the legislation of all policies because they generally see the future more vividly and better.
To think of getting rid of the elderly and replacing them with the youth is very dangerous. Youth never made it alone in history. An example of young leaders like Alexander the Great shouldn’t delude anyone. At his time, life expectancy was about thirty-five years. Leading at around thirty years of age meant that he was in the category of elderly persons with the required experience of his time to govern.
Unpatriotic elderly leaders, despite what the nation did for them, were ungrateful. They destroyed its future leaders by denying them the basics of what it takes to be productive citizens by looting and amassing wealth allocated for their descendants that could not exhaust under regular human consumption. Despite that, they act like parasites, harming the nation in a way it will remain in existence for them to continue milking, probably due to their tactical foresight and limited exposure to globalization.
On the other hand, young people have great energy, hopes and dreams, exposure and highest order hedonists and showy. Power in the hand of those with such potentiality without orientation will undoubtedly be catastrophic that will probably bring an end to the great home of black man, just like how virulent pathogens destroy. Moreover, they might squander the whole treasury on exorbitant trademarks of designer clothes, cars, mobile phones, hotels and girls for their pleasure. Therefore, we must avoid both for the betterment of the country.
Division of labour is as necessary for success as the involvement of the two categories of patriotic citizens in good leadership. Of course, a certain amount of all the categories should be present everywhere. Still, more youth should be in designing policies that will tie the present for the future prospects while more elderly should be in supervision of their feasibility and regulation and ensure their effective implementation.
Aliyu Muhammad Aliyu wrote from Kano via amabaffa@yahoo.com.