CALL TO ACTION: Nigerian Youths not a Wasted Generation #TheList

"Despite the endless ills and the misdeeds of our youth, We are delighted that youth is not a wasted generation" Abraham Adesanya...How true is this in the Nigerian context?..

File Photo

I read a piece 'The Parable of the Corn', to which i will refer to as a call to action by no other but the indefatigable defender of human right and voice of the voiceless Prof. Pius Adesanmi and i was moved to tears. From Primary school to tertiary we were made to understand that we are the leaders of TOMORROW but just like the 1978 classic movie "Tomorrow Never Comes" when a corrupt police chief thwarts an officer trying to free a woman...Our so call Charlatanic leaders have continually thwarted the hopes and aspirations of the dynamic Nigerian youths. How long are we going to wait and watch by the sidelines, while these old goons continue to deplete the commonwealth of our great nation...Read the 'Parable of the Corn' below:

The Parable of the Corn

By Pius Adesanmi.

Standard fare of elderly conduct in Yoruba land. When, as an elder, you hold roasted or boiled corn and there is a child around the corner, looking expectantly at you, you cut off the narrower end of the corn that we usually refer to as the head and give it to the child. Then you proceed to eat the base that we call the bottom of the corn. The bottom has bigger and yummier grains anyway. 

Hence the proverb: ti agbalagba ba ti bere si je agbado lati ori, ki omode to wa nibe sun si eyin. Ko fe fun je ni. 

Translation: When an elder starts quaffing the corn from the anatomical part of the thing that is usually reserved for children, the children should take a hint... he is not going to give you the bottom of the corn. 

What you do after taking a hint is the question. 

You can cry and wail and hope that the inconsiderate agbaya elder will reserve the head of the next corn for you.

Or you can seriously begin to think of ways to make corn grow in your own little spaces and station in life. 

The average age of that cabinet is 61.

They have been eating the corn from the head since the 1980s.

Some 60% of you are 30 years-old and below. Stop living in perpetual hope that these guys will give you the head of the corn.

The corn of genius, innovation, and initiative belongs to your generation the world over. It is a corn you can own whole. You don't even have to have it anatomically partitioned between your generation and these recycled materials.

Stop playing footsie with them. 

Stop waiting for them to blow the whistle of culture, religion, and political affiliation and divide you while you fight each other and wait in vain hope for the head of the corn.

Own your own corn wholly, undivided like your peers in the rest of the world.

The corn of innovation.

The corn of genius.

The corn of creativity.

That is where you have an edge over these guys.