SYNERGIZING FOR CHANGE

[I originally wrote this short article for the UNICEF voices of youths (VoY) and was published by them a few months ago.]

Synergizing for change

Where does change come from, a question best answered if the concept of change is first understood. The contextual change here refers to an upward movement in the socio-economic (or simply, better living) condition of the people in a region, of which the world can fit into this ideological region.

The responsible response to the question would be “ourselves” but the word ourselves here is a misnomer, as individual change might not do much to change a generation of youths whose ideological believes and pursuits are constantly being suppressed and frustrated by a structurally defect system which for some reasons work deliberately to undermine the development of the youths. Permit the anger in my voice but if you come from a nation like mine especially from the region I hail from, talking about the Niger delta region of Nigeria, you will understand my frustration.

Nigeria, a coastal third world country with a population of one hundred and sixty million of which over fifty percent are youths, our predominant revenue comes from oil which is almost totally exported to first and second world countries, our challenge in Nigeria is to have change! A change defined by better leadership - followership relationship where the leadership can account for the trust and responsibility the followers have entrusted them with.

Like every third world country, we are plagued with poor standard of living, most things which are taken as common in your country are still luxuries in mine; things like constant electricity (yes, I said that, power is still a scarce commodity in my country Nigeria), good education, access to standard Medicare, etc, most people will quickly identify corruption and other negative social vices as the reason for our problems but I say in this generation (generation Y) our problem is no longer bad policies by our leaders but a passive generation of youths, of youths who will rather spend more of their time playing computer games than actively participate in nation building.

Change in every system (national and international) will come when there is a synergy between the leadership and the followership in that system. A system in this context refers to a collection of people and institutions working together to achieve a common goal; from my very definition of this contextual system, you’ll agree with me that it is imperative that the components (people and institutions) in the system make efforts to properly define the goal they want to achieve and then set out the modalities for achieving these goals; this is only the first step.

When as youths, we feel nonchalant about what happens in our society (and world), we relinquish our right to hear and be heard and have a say on what happens, to others; a stand we passively take by deliberately ignoring what happens around us.

In a generation where we are all intricately connected and interconnected through social networks and media we have a potent power in our hands, a power we still need to speedily adapt to make our world a better place.

My friends, we can make this change happen by speaking decisively and collectively against policies and decisions that are detrimental to our future, talking about issues of environmental degradation, human rights violation, etc. with the introduction and rapid success of the social networking concept I think we now have a very potent tool in our hand to play active roles in the building of our world vis-à-vis our generation.

- Emi Iyalla