USA Africa Dialogue Series - INEC’s accusation: In defence of Nigerian youths

INEC's accusation: In defence of Nigerian youths   By KAYODE KETEFE   The news came as a shock! The shock was not about what was said but the context of this one makes all the difference. After all casting aspersion on the Nigerian youth, whether justifiably or otherwise, has been a popular pastime of the older generations, but while it is commonplace to take swipes at the youth on the grounds of perceived moral bankruptcy and academic ineptitude, among others, it is unusual to hear in such tirades an accusation so outlandish like saying our youths are now incompetent to handle a mere computer.   The said shocking news was the recent accusation made by the Commissioner for Information of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Mr Solomon Soyele, that a 'majority' of graduates drawn from those currently serving in the National Youth Service Corps scheme were inept in handling the organisation's Direct Data Capture machines being used for the ongoing voters' registration exercise. He had lambasted the recruited 'corpers' of unwittingly sabotaging the registration through their inability to grasp basic operations of the DDC machines, in spite of training. 'We assumed that these corps members should know how to operate a simple machine like the DDC machine in addition to the training that they had, (sic) but unfortunately, they disappointed us. We discovered (that) they could not, and many of them struggled with it unsuccessfully. "These are graduates. And we never expected that any of them won't be able to handle a computer, but a majority of them could not'  INEC has formidable challenges on its hand, no doubt, but shifting the blame of the hitches    so far recorded in the registration exercise on the engaged 'corpers' looks ill-contrived and unconvincing. Has anyone done some standards checks on those DDC machines? If they are ok, why do many of them keep rejecting the genuine fingerprints of authentic candidates? Besides, are the graduates to be blamed for the logistic problems that have rocked (or is it marred?) the registration process till date, too?  We are all used to the self-deprecating rhetoric of branding our educated youth 'half-baked graduates' who are irredeemably unfit for any worthwhile employment, but to suggest that fresh Nigerian graduates could not handle a 'one-way' digital machine like the DDC, even after training, is the height of insult.  But INEC is toeing a familiar path. The younger Nigerians have over the years being unduly victimised through home-pun warfare of unsavoury verbal attack culminating in psychological torture and at times, erosion of self- belief. They have been spared no negative epithets by the older generations who perceived them as some sort of inferior specie on all indices that define human personality. The youths are morally insolvent, intellectually incompetent, and even spiritually blind! All the adjectives in thesaurus that have semantic connection with words despicable, contemptible and miserable have been lavishly exhausted in description of the Nigerian youth by the own people whose only difference lies in being older! Yet all the socio-economic misdeeds culminating into woes afflicting the younger generations have been perpetrated by the older Nigerians. Many graduates of today are unduly adjudged unemployable educated illiterate, hardly capable of any worthwhile cerebral exploits. Even though there are no attestable proofs to justify the postulation, its proponents miss no opportunity to expound this pernicious philosophy. This myth, it appears to this writer, has always been perpetrated out of sheer generational bias.  This view, nay mindset, is rooted in vainglorious desire for contrived self-importance, even at collective level- a base kind of arrogance that flows from concocted superiority. In truth, the assumption is most unscientific, science tells us that by the very process of evolution, the human species, like other species, are evolving towards perfection on all fronts, including intellectual, thus the homo sapiens is evolving towards 'homo sapiens sapiens' that is from 'the wise man' to the 'wise wise man' or simply put, the 'super man'. But the advocates of this generational bias are saying the exact opposite. By common sense, if human beings are retrogressing in intellect rather than progressing as the theory of evolution suggests, then the entire landscape of the earth should be brimming with morons by now,-through gradual descent into intellectual senescence over the millennia. Furthermore, empirical evidence does not support inference of any disability in the intelligence of a Nigerian youth. Nigerian educational system could have fallen over the years as a result of underfunding and disregard by the rulers, but certainly the intellect of the youth has not fallen with it. The youth have developed numerous compensatory measures to remedy whatever defects that arose from their deprivations. To drive home the point, it is a common knowledge that Nigerian youth take part in many international professional examinations and acquit themselves well. We should learn to appreciate our youth and stop denigrating them as if they did not genetically descend from their progenitors who have chosen to don the toga of unfathomable superiority. Whatever vices now being exhibited by the youth was not inculcated in them by some subterranean spirits, the youth acquired them through indoctrination by the older generations many of whom now deprecate the same youth with unbridled passion.

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