TheCable

Funto Babawale, a postgraduate student at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ), says the country has made achieving success “extremely difficult” for young people.

She stated this on Thursday at the launch of her book titled: “Lazy Nigerian Youth and the Table Shakers”, which held at the NIJ hall in Ogba, Lagos state.

Babawale said the book chronicles the experiences of youth who are tagged “lazy”, despite not receiving much support from the government.

“This book is more or less a letter to whoever cares to listen that on a second thought, Nigeria can be better.

“We only claim to be independent but deep down we are not independent. We have been taken for granted in this country. A good example is the one where governors are ordering door-to-door searches for looted palliatives — something that is meant for people but were hoarded. Imagine if such approach could be employed to get data of citizens and tailor programmes and policies to benefit each house.

“And then it makes you remember that truly, government knows what is right to do, how to do it but intentionally decides not to. Why? Because we the citizens have been complacent. We sit down and let them do whatever they want to do and that’s why snakes can swallow millions of naira and we laugh over it, and another mismanages billions and we rather turn it to jokes and nickname him ‘the fainting director’.

“The elders keep quiet whenever the youth expect them to speak up and they still come around to blame this same youth for being failures in a country that has made it extremely difficult to be successful as a youth.

“Until we stop and collectively question why the government through its departments and agencies derive joy in draining us of the little resources we struggle to provide for ourselves in order to survive, the mentality that one cannot make it at a young age and within a short time will still linger and most youths would still be seen as lazy for not engaging in physical labour to earn a living.”

The book, ‘Lazy Nigerian Youths and Table Shakers’, has eight chapters with themes that cut across identity crisis, voter apathy, cost of governance, among others.