Nigerian Youths Urged to Emulate Older Generation to Make Impact

Oluchi Chibuzor and Deborah Orefale

As the call for the younger generation to assume more responsibility in nation building, an expert has reiterated the imperative for them to leverage the older demographic to make an impact in the country.

Youths were advised to turn the huge diversity in the country into an asset within their neighbourhood, community and local environment.

Chairman, Board Member Trustees at Dola Bamgboye Foundation, Mrs. Vivienne Bamgboye, who gave the advice in Lagos recently, said the youths must not allow themselves to be disconnected from the older generations by politicians in the country.

Explaining a model that has worked for the foundation, Bamgboye said since inception they have adopted a cluster method in building networks that can be utilized by young people in national development.

She maintained that as part of their programme to empower the youth in the informal sector, the foundation has trained over 50 youths who have a mandate to form 150 cluster networks of people.

She further explained that for her the most important thing is that the youth need to understand their demographic is not a singular cohort and so youths have different ways of looking at things.

According to her, “So, just because you are young, all of you have to vote for the same person. The most important thing to do at this point is to act to make your connection across the generations.

“So, the whole idea of saying one generation is too old and they do not serve your purpose; I personally feel that is a misconception, yes certain people are too old to run for an office, but they still have something to contribute to the collective wisdom that will help to move the country forward.

“Youths should not allow politicians to break the link across the generations, so like now there are four generations of people in the world right now. The fact that somebody is 80 who is too old to run but has something to contribute either from experience, knowledge or finance.”

She added: “Some might be looking for young people who they can invest the money on to do the job. For me it is about collective responsibility and making decisions so that you remain connected within and outside your community. As a country we have diversity, but these should be our assets and should not separate us or disconnected from each other.”

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