Saturday 28 April 2012

PART 3: TROUBLES NEVER SINGLY COME

Ayuka grew up to be told she had to wear distinct clothes that differentiated her from her brothers. She was a very beautiful girl, and was a toast of the boys in the village. The boys wore shorts and shirts, and good looking khaftani with caps to match.

Inna had told her, custom allowed her to wear trousers made for girls once in a while, but to tie the wrapper around her waist, and wear bespoken blouses. In some occasions, she could wear at will, any of the many long, flowing dresses Inna had made for her.

When they could afford the money, Inna took the bale to the local tailor to sew them. Even though he had an old looking machine, and seemed to have too much work to do, girls and their mothers would still troop to the shop, and demand sometimes in angry tones, why their clothes were not ready, or why some different form, or style was made.

When money was scarce; and father would frown when any of the children approached him for money, Inna would just cut the bale in sizes, and use the needle she had bought in dozens, to stitch them together under the lantern, by the hearth after the food was gulped, and the elves of slumber roamed.

Trust in those occasions, the dresses never looked as beautiful as those that had gone to see the tailor. And the girls, Asabe and Ayuka would frown at the clothes, and would prefer only to wear them at home, to avoid the scorn of other girls, when they went out.

She was a very illustrious woman – mother, who had married father when her puberty had just arrived, and stayed in his house twenty four more moons before father could come home and know her. It was the time, when white skinned people filtered through the hinterland, and built houses in compounds, and pleaded with parents to let their children congregate till noon.

Inna’s Abba had refused his children gather with others to learn to clap and sing and play. He would have none of that. Keep a child all morning just to sing and clap and play? It sounded ironic, while farmlands lay overgrown with weeds. Millet that was needed in bountiful harvest, otherwise grandma would have to buy from the market, when one she had had been made into kunu. And the beans that was used for kwose which sprouted with the latter rains needed tend frequently, to enable them spread limbs and multiply well.
 
He’d rather have his sons in the farm with him, and let his daughters sit at the village square, and sell vegetables and fry kwose. Or go hawking of atta and daddawa for their mother. Inna would fry kwose at the square in the morning, and go selling daddawa till the cock crew before the sun went down, or when the tray went empty. And that was the usual culprit.

That was where she first met father. When she stopped hawking daddawa and fried only kwose, her puberty had not even come. She would sit at the village square, preferring it to the market. Father became a regular customer, and would sit and chat a little longer after gulping his kunu with the kwose. It was common sight to find a girl who fried kwose going off to marry one of her customers who came to gulp his kunu with her kwose.

Ayuka was the second of daughters in a house of eight children. She had two elderly brothers, Buba who was now married and his wife had bore two children already, and sold vegetables at the market. As much as he was a strong farmer, Buba was a hunter who went to the wild, tried never to step the ‘evil’ forest, and return each time with fat bloody meat that taste great after it was, grilled with salt and pepper.
He was the next in line to be dabbed Sarkin Farauta – chief hunter. Father was very proud of his firstborn son. With ya Buba, they never lacked meat in the house. Then there was Mailafiya. His name meant a lot to father and Inna.

Told it was, that as a toddler, he was most visited by bouts of illness, which would make his temperature tumble at night, and soar by day. He’d gnaw at his teeth, and convulse till some milk-white saliva poured down the side of his mouth. The marabou had taken him in his hands, and gone to see the Good Spirit. And never again did he ever had any bout of illness.

After him was Asabe, who was born in the farm. She lived fourty two moons older than Ayuka, and had been married off to a bronze smith who paid her dowry in beautiful bronze castings. Asabe had been so happy on her wedding day, and Inna gave her loads of blessing before she left that day, to live with the man, and to make little beautiful girls for him. The marriage was not blessed it was rumored around, because she had not delivered a son to her man.

Ayuka was the fourth child of the family, and had very long hair, with a dimple that posed her smile in a beautiful cast, and made the boys stare at her, long, long times. She had a lithe slimy frame, and silky long hair that poured down her shoulders, till the scapula was well hidden.

She had four younger brothers who called her ya’Bebi, being that she was the younger of the girls in the house. She loved them more than her elder siblings, but loved even more, Hassan and Hussein, the twin that came forth last from their mother. They had come when no one had expected, considering that Inna was ripe with age.

She had greatly helped Inna in caring for them as infants, and they had a strong clinging towards her, than any other in the house. They were still children, about the age when they could sweep the compound and wash the plates, were they girls. But Ayuka had to do all of the chores, while they played a great deal in the Zaure.

Sometimes, they called their friends and went off to the stream that watered the village, play in it for long and then go off hunting Agama lizards in the surrounding shrubs.

Ayuka’s other siblings, Abba, because he was named after father, and dan’Fari who was very fair in complexion, were of age to mingle with the youth of the village, and thus went to the farm with father. They also went to learn to sing and clap and play with other children in the district, who assemble at the compound every five days, in Alkaleri.

But they went for four days. On Friday, they didn’t go to the place, a mile and half from Bwompe, when they went to the farm with father very early in the morning. Ayuka never went with the boys. It was never heard, of a girl who went in the midst of the boys.

Bwompe sat close on a pass. The towering hills kept it away from Fulani and Anaguta invaders centuries past, and now, the taller hills formed its watch tower, and refuge. A very remote village, not all Lorries could maneuver the steep road that led to it. Thus only the giant lorry in the fleet that ply the long route between seven villages come only once in four days.

It carried all the commodities Bwompe needed, and the district nurse that came once every week, to administer the medicine that cured diseases. Even though people still beckoned the marabou, they still tried the concoctions of the nurse who came in crystal clear dress with a headgear to match.

But a few motorcycles plied the trail often. The district officer’s bike was most distinctive of all. The D.O. as he was called was a white skinned man, who wore something over his eyes. The messenger who worked in his house, a young man from Bwompe here, said it helped him see his way better, and to read well. Said of it, that it helped to see djins at night, when they prowled, and cast spells on children exposed, when the turare was not lit by parents. The man was learning the local dialect already, and could say some words well. His house was said to have plenty rooms in it, and a nice lane of blossoming flowers.

Children would abandon their play, and wave as he rode bye to the village head’s house. It was a giant Honda CG-250, and its roar was distinct from the others. This announced its arrival each time. Because the village head’s compound hedged not too far from the square, the D.O. would park his bike at the square, and walk to see the village head.

Ayuka went to the village square like her mother did, to fry kwose in the mornings. Men bound for the farm, would sit with kunu and kwose and fill their bellies before they left for their farms. And then Ayuka would retire home to wash plates, and sweep the compound, and cook while the twins played in the Zaure.


A few times, when the D.O. came, children who trail the bike would buy off the remaining kwose that left unsold all morning. But most times, the few that left were usually being taken home to the twins and their friends, who devoured with much gusto.

And there was this young man, just initiated into manhood, who came to sit, and gulp before heading for the farm. Their house was in the other side of the village, and he was named Babangida. He had a nice physique, and his biceps gleamed in the morning sun. His hands were firm, and strong.

He had the humor that chuckled your sides, every time he was around. His father had sent him to the place where children gathered to learn to play and to sing and to clap. It was said, that they taught to count and to write and to read too. The piece of wood at the entrance of the compound read, “Rop District Elementary School”.

Ayuka liked him a lot. His company every morning seems to make the time travel fast. He would share some of the stories they were told by the white people who taught at the school. Sometimes, he would urge her to count after him. He no longer went to the school. He had finished learning from there, and was encouraged to proceed to the city to finish his learning.

He had been going there since he was the age of Hassan and Hussein. He had elder brothers who helped his father in the farm, and who were not privileged to attend the school. Those days, there were usually great lorries coming from the city, full of people and bands who rolled out across the district, visiting village and gathering people to the squares. Accompanying the D.O., they often came to encourage fathers to send their children to the school. “All the male children, and the girls too, if you can” the man who compered would say after the D.O. had given his speech.

After the second time they came, and had a boy from the village climb the wooden platform to count to ten, fathers began to send their wards to school. That was when Babangida had gotten the chance to attend. And his father had managed to pay his fees of fifty naira for each class, till he graduated. But his father had declined, rather choosing to have him around helping in the farm.

But he had enough learning already that helped him count his father’s goats. He was the shepherd who took them out to eat in the morning before they left for the farm, and returned them to the manger at dusk. And by the time he was done taking the goats out, his father and brothers were usually gone for the farm already. So, he had time to drink his kunu and kwose at the square, before joining them. and he would turn up at Ayuka’s hearth, to take kwose. He preferred her kwose to others, because hers tasted better in his mouth, and because she liked to laugh to his jokes.

And he liked the way her smile radiated. He always looked, unending. She would look at his eyes, and find something that she never sees in her father’s eyes, or Inna’s or her brothers’. It radiated warmth, and caught her off her feet each time. Every time, she asked herself what it was, that drew him closer to her heart.

Friday 27 April 2012

CONFESSIONS

You are the silo of my thoughts
Where the pollens graze
Where the scythes leash in

Famished gardens of my heart
Where hungry pests flirt
Blooming saps besieged
Crave coned petals of your bosom
Fertilizer for the Slytherin's rage

My clouds are heavy
Prepare your fallowed land
Let me sow, I will water
The land skirted in green
Delight and envy at crossroads

Wednesday 25 April 2012

ROAD EATERS

We ate the roads
Sinewy comic lesions
Where offerings burned
Bread cast upon dry ground
It was at the skirt of Minna – sackful
Just before we chew dust
The monster that ate through the earth
The beast of Manchok
Lettuce from Vom came late
It ate two mountains
When we were transfigured
The wings of Bukuru
And ravaged the bowels of Jos

Tuesday 24 April 2012

PART 2: TROUBLES NEVER SINGLY COME

The night was cold. It was not traditional, like all nights – natural and usual. It was already two weeks in to the harmattan, but the heavens blew more wind this night. It was the biting type. The winds were gentle though, but the cold would seep through your skin and gnaw at your bones.
Temperatures were dropping lower than the usual for the period of the year, and by dusk, the streets were devoid of people. It was the kind of weather that is appropriate for twosome, when the young and old tangle and be twain, and morning fever would follow afterwards.
Weng lay in his covering, but still shuddered from the nibbling of the cold. It was very light – the covering, and had a couple of holes in it, which let in the cold. He donned layers of soiled sox, and his head wore an awesome afro, though very unkept. These he used as coverings for his feet and the head.
His stomach had not welcomed guests all day, and it protested in condescension. This made the cold even more difficult to keep out. The day had been full of high jinks. He had been assured a spot on one of the trucks that would go quarrying, and atleast he was going to get some money to fend for the stomach. But the foreman had told him when he got there, that there was no longer need for more hands. They were just going to stick with the band of laborers that went out daily with the truck.
It rippled a dour mood over him all morning. No matter how much he tried to get an alternative, the Good Spirit seemed not on his side, and he never was able to get any tangible done. He thus, went off to sleep till late in the noon, when there was a need for laborers to move cement off a truck at one of the warehouses around.
There was need for ten laborers, and it was going to be on ‘first come basis’. It took him time to shake off the sleep, as the body was already waned for lack of nourishment. By the time he got there, ten men were already working, offloading bags and lots of bags from the truck to the warehouse, where a local distributor sold in wholesale and retail.
He had debts to pay at the ‘Mama Put’, where he could eat on credit as far as he could payback at the end of the month. He owed three and half thousands, and may want to get a better blanket. But his day, like many past, and more to come was futile.
His cardboard did enough for protection and warmth, but the passageways for rats and the actions of weevils had rendered its job imperfect. It was in an alley, very close to the very wall that formed the end of the road. The alley was called Tapgun Close by the Metropolitan Planning Authority, and had a garden and a bar on it.
The wall formed a valuable piece of protection from the cold, atleast from its intensities. It was the backside of a housing complex. It was rumored to be owned by an ally of the chair of the board of the Metropolitan Planning Authority, who had lobbied for some contract, and had diverted the money to building the massive complex.
This wall had numerous windows that were for bedrooms and toilets and kitchens. During the harmattan season, when the cold blew so well and it penetrated walls, bedroom lights would stay on all night to provide some warmth. The wall had pipes crawling on it, from everywhere. Pipes that carried night soil and pipes that carried the water that drained from the sinks. A few times, the flushing of toilets that ran through burst pipes would rent the air with sour smell, while some running sinks continued through paths that were cut for them in the brown earth outside.
Bathroom lights would flicker on frequently, and once or twice the sound of deep frying oil rent the air. The very sides of the alley formed a complex of shops. Some buildings were storied, and had tiny staircases of thin metal which were individually installed by the shop owners. Going round to the side to climb up seemed a task.
Most shops sold building materials. In some, you find upholsteries, in others, only toilet and kitchen fittings. A few sold tiles, while the majority traded window panes, and zinc roofings, and nails, and general building tools.
The bar and the garden seemed like misfits on this alley, but there never could have been any site better for the both. Very often, the youth from the vicinity, and from around, would warm up to the steps of the bar, consume loads of liquor and then proceed to the garden to tangle in all manners. Some old folks would wind up there frequently, and mesh in the exuberance that overthrows youth.
A truck gets bye every Saturday, to deliver loads of cartons and crates of beer and whiskey and of locally brewed dangerous dry gins. It would then upload the empty ones, which have served the thirst and drunkenness of plenty, and made a huge hole in the pockets of many.
This part of the city was notorious for lawlessness, and the city’s authorities were really finding it difficult in dealing with its numerous crimes. A couple of times, gunshots have emanated from thence, and the victims either lay lifeless by dawn, or require the surgeon’s knife to rectify the damage made by hot spontaneous metal.
It was even rumored that the city’s elite frequented the alley for narcotics, and once in a while to poach on the availability of amateur assassins who would leave trails in their wake. So very famous was the Ministry official who was found with a need for the surgeon’s knife one morning, after he became the victim of what seemed to be his own schemes. He never told of what took him there anyway.
The alley also had its fair share of harlotry, as young girls loose from their mother’s leash, thronged, attracted by the lush supply of men, to the alley to profit from the misappropriation of customary and societal morals, debased more by the poverty that so thrives right on the fabric of society.
Little wonder, the growing number of unsung mothers in these parts. And the cold never did them any good, as there was hardly any need to press – the man, seeking to douse the rampaging fire running in his tap; the girl, warmth, and an anticlimax for the feeling that throbs there within, craving to explode. And this alley was very notorious, and very famous, and very well known around the nooks and cronies of this city.
And the little cardboard house stood on an empty plot of some rich man, who had left the land fallow, hoping its value was going to appreciate in years to come. A couple other installations, shared this valuable space with the cardboard.
Weng was almost drifting, part in agony of the cold, part in the looming need for sleep. Then some sound brought him back to reality. It was a car. It was obviously coming in late, and would lack the best of liquor that sold at the bar. The glitter from the car pierced through the dark, and formed figurine outlines in the vastness of the dark.
But it was not parked by the bar. The driver had faced the car to the adjoining street, putting the rear in the clear view of Weng. It was parked close to the garden, and carried a government registration number. Another elite in the hood he thought. He imagined what meaning life gave to an elite. He could see the silhouette of two men in the car. They seemed relaxed, and in a conversation.
Weng looked on in admiration, and wondered what the inside of the car felt like. The nice smell, the warmth, the comfort, and maybe a stereo played the DJ’s selection on bass boost woofers. He’s only heard music blasting from the speakers at the bar. All his life, he’d only sat in buses; and in trucks, when a few times, he’d been lucky to get a job to quarry sand. The car still glittered in the dark.
Then from the garden, a posse of men approached the car. It must be one of the daredevil gangs that lurk within these gardens at night. More like him, they are wont for money. The two elite emerged from the car. One of them had a briefcase.
Money for drugs Weng thought. He’d seen on countless occasions, this scene played out, when influential men come begging in the alley, for narcotics to cool off their thumping addictions. The guys who sell the drugs to these elites come from a cartel of barons who themselves live in Porsche houses and drive the latest cars, and drink the expensive wines.
A conversation ensued between both ends. Weng was beginning to drift back to sleep, this act no longer interesting. However, the act was one, longer than usual. He opened his eyes to find them still negotiating. Then fingers started pointing in opposite directions.
A brawl developed. Then guns were cocked, and pointed at heads. The gang was now in control of the deal. One of the elites was pleading for the gang leader to take things calm.
There was a final cocking of a gun. The elite with the briefcase had handed it over to the gang, and then the sound riffled through the night. Someone dropped to the ground, and the gang varnished just before the bar emptied to the alley, to come to terms with what had just proceeded. As the co-habiters of the bar thronged to the passage, the car zoomed past in a flash, and screeched on to the adjoining street, and out of sight.

Monday 23 April 2012

I'D BE GOD

I’d be god
When Ra kills his rage
I’d be god
Me
Of a barren skin –
Fruitless
I’d be god
No need for homoestasis
The petalled plume to wilt
Ra’s fever cured and gone
When I’m god
Then we shall merry the dark
Before Ra’s demons come again

LORD OF ALL FEARS

Feet don't fail me now
My demons becloud again
Wont for more than they bargained

Poke me dream, will you?
Dally your barrage of goodies -
Me of fairies treat

For my placebo smoulders
Surety and party, locked at Doom
Like the flogged, of bush-babies to penury

Fairy or djin, hunt me the lantern
Gold and silver to my feet
Love and power, the heart's fill afterwards

Up, Close and Personal – Leveraging On Young Entrepreneurs.


No one is born a good citizen; no nation is born a democracy. Rather, both are processes that continue to evolve over a lifetime. Young people must be included from birth. A society that cuts itself off from its youth severs its lifeline; it is condemned to bleed to death[1]. Young people should never be seen as a burden on any society, but as its most precious asset.”[2]
Abraham is still smarting from his bruises. Last night, he got waylaid in some alley by a gang of urchins, and refused to give up his wallet. The much they punched and kicked, the more he clung to his wallet that contained only enough to bring him to school today. Until the police showed up, he had continued only, to yell for help. It was his last bucks, and had to save them for school the next day. He had no option but to walk the three kilometers from the beachside to the makeshift shack he shares with his two brothers and a sister, and expect to be mobbed.
Today, he had gone to see his marketing lecturer who had agreed to censor the tourism marketing product that had taken him five months to draft, and another two, to assemble. He held the one sheet of paper containing his plan in his right hand, and looked poised as he approached the lecturer’s office. He managed to keep a straight face, as his bruises still stung. Minutes later, Abraham exits the office, looking disparaged. For the umpteenth time, he’d been told that his toils can’t get him anywhere near breaking the jinx of poverty that so looms over his family. His plan once again, is declared not good enough.
Abraham is trying to get above the poverty line in which he was born in. His eldest brother could not finish secondary education due to lack of funds, and now works with a local vehicle mechanic. Kunle his other brother had finished from the state polytechnic four years earlier through a government scholarship, but still wander the streets of Lagos, seeking for the Golden Fleece. He had once been close to landing a job, but was turned down at the last minute, for the inability of drawing up a simple cash flow plan for a startup. Abraham like Kunle, was benefitting from the ambivalence of the Local Authorities, and he had gone ahead to the state owned university.
Now wanting to break away from the clutches of poverty, he intends to start some venture on his own, control his flow of income and just be his own boss. However, he had failed again today, in setting off his aspirations in a good start. The lecturer had told him how the product has failed in basic requirements including a business plan, a financial projection, and its unique selling point. These terms seem vague and indistinct to Abraham whom like many other million youngsters in the developing world, get their bright business ideas turned into the dustbin, for lack of basic business knowledge. It is common sight in Nigeria find youngsters who have bright business ideas but can not start-off due to lack of funds, but principally due to the absence of basic entrepreneurial knowledge. These ideas most often seem to be driven by the need to escape the ever looming glare of poverty.
Unlike his peers who are doing well, living in caring and cohesive societies which provide them excellent education and an unprecedented knowledge of the world around them[3], Abraham and many others in Nigeria, are consigned to the hard facts of instability that has rocked his country for decades unending. Analogous to numerous countries in the third world, the crumble of colonialism, caused decomposed ethnic lines and City-State allegiances to bear cracks of insecurity and ill-preparedness to the glory and worship of urbanization, independence and civilization, which have resulted in weaknesses in the State-centric concept of security − regarding development, human rights, peace and good governance. Thus, whether it concerned civil wars with their dramatic consequences, natural disasters and accidents, social dissatisfaction, or yet, health crises and major pandemics, populations face life threatening dangers − paramount above others, poverty.
Ending poverty, the aspiration of the Millennium Development Goals, is the overriding developmental objective of the 21st century. Despite great progress in the past 50 years, 1.2 billion people—one-fifth of the people on Earth—live on less than US $1 a day, without access to many of the social services basic to a decent human life. Their plight requires a global response making full use of all the financial, intellectual and organizational resources that we can muster.[4] Poverty however, cannot be analyzed without taking into account the effects of the growing interconnectedness and interaction within and between countries and regions. Some have clearly benefited from the increased interdependence.
Despite great progress in some countries and regions, deep poverty remains a stubborn and intractable problem across much of the world. Substantial gains in some countries have been accompanied by deep losses in others, suffer from hunger and lack access to water, sanitation and energy. To cap it all, young people account for most persons suffering from the effects of poverty and wanton lack of opportunities. This group of people, aged between 15 and 24 total almost 1.1 billion and constitute 18 per cent of the global population. Youth and children together, including all those aged 24 years and below, account for nearly 40 per cent of the world’s population.[5] In general, therefore, the definition of youth as the period of transition from dependence to independence relates to all societies and could serve as one of the fundamental principles of the United Nations global agenda. Independence, in the sense of representing personal autonomy, is part of the Western process of individualization[6] and, as such, is an example of a culturally conditioned relationship between an individual and society.
Youth are an increasingly compelling subject for study, entering into political space in highly complex ways. To pay attention to youth is to pay close attention to the topology of the social landscape – to power and agency; public, national and domestic spaces and identities, and their articulation and disjunctures; memory, history, and sense of change; globalization and governance; gender and class. Youth as a historically constructed social category, as a relational concept, and youth as a group of actors, form an especially sharp lens through which social forces are focused. Through this lens, relations and constructions of power are refracted, recombined, and reproduced, as people make claims on each other based on age – claims that are reciprocal but asymmetrical.[7]
Young people have an ambiguous economic and cultural relationship with the globalizing world. They are relatively adaptable and therefore perhaps best able to make use of the new opportunities presented; they are the best-educated generation, particularly in areas relating to new information and communication technology (ICT); they benefit from economic growth; many travel around the globe for work, studies, exchange projects and vacations; and the telephone and Internet enable them to stay in touch with friends and relatives all over the world.[8] There are still many young people, however, especially in developing countries, who lack the economic power to benefit from the opportunities globalization offers. They have been left out of the modernization process and remain on the other side of the digital divide, but are simultaneously finding their cultural identity and local traditions threatened.
However, to succeed in today’s competitive global economy, they must be equipped with advanced skills beyond literacy; to secure employment, or some lifeline out of poverty. Young people who start new enterprises are creating jobs for themselves and reaching their personal goals. Nonetheless, lack of experience and resources mean that a high percentage of these efforts fail during the first few months of operation. Starting a business requires courage in the best of times; courage to take the risk of putting your own money into an idea; courage to take on the competition; and courage to take a leap into an unknown future. But there is much to opening a business than having the right idea and willing to take a risk.[9]
For an entrepreneur to succeed, he or she needs to have basic entrepreneurial skills, such as knowing how to communicate well, make a budget andl. The need for effective training is even more profound in countries where traditional educational systems rarely provide it even on the basic level. In such environments like the one in Nigeria, there is a need to foster an entrepreneurial culture, introducing entrepreneurial principles not only within the general population,[10] but most especially, amongst the youth who are termed “the leaders of tomorrow”. Dexterity in book keeping and accounting is necessary in drafting a business plan, making a financial projection, making a budget and the understanding of financial statements; the ability to negotiate prices and contracts; excellent external relations and brand positioning; and a skill in marketing is also important.
Conversely, as these skills are needed for entrepreneurship, there exist a few youngsters who against all odds, have tried to expand their ideas into money-making ventures that could be integrated into the private sector. But integration have not been possible, due to the lack of sufficient funds to sustain the venture in its formative years, the lack of support management expertise to advise the startup, unavailability of skilled and competent labour, and indeed, certain government policies that seem hostile to startups.
One great barrier preventing young people from setting up businesses and assuming leadership positions even as it concerns management is the systematic exclusion and marginalization of youth from decision-making and political processes at national and local levels world over, most especially in developing countries. A vivid example, is a study carried out by The Conflict, Security and Development Group (CSDG) in Nigeria which identified that, “the minimum age for becoming a lawmaker at the state level and the Lower Chamber (House of Representatives) at the national level has been raised from 21 and 25 in 1979 and 1989, to 30 years in 2005, while that of a Senator (Upper Chamber at National Law-making Chamber) has been raised from 25 to 35 years. Unsurprisingly, there is no single member of the Senate who is under 35 years of age, and the average structure of Senators (2003-2007) shows that people aged 45-55 years form the core with 44% of the 109-member Chamber, followed by those between 36 and 40 years (17.2)%. Similarly, in the National House of Representatives, of the total 360 members, only five are under 35 years of age (all male), and people aged 41 to 51 years form the core (59%), followed by those under 40 years of age – 23% (but mostly within age 35-40 years) and those aged 52 years and above (15%). The average age in the House of Representatives is 45 years. The current state of affairs reflects deterioration in youth participation over time given that in 1993, 52.4% of members were between age 30 and 40 years, and this dropped to 46% in 1999 and 23% in 2005.”[11]
The implications of the continued exclusion of youth from decision-making processes, both social and political portends ominous consequences as has been starkly displayed in countries like Cambodia, Liberia, Columbia, Angola, Nigeria, Haiti et cetera. Large groups are being excluded from the benefits of production and decision making. For example, there are very few cases in which the youth ministry and the youth budget have been administered by youth themselves. This neglect has also been translated in to a recurring cycle of unemployment, unemployability and underemployment.
To reduce the failure rate of youth enterprises and address critical issues during the start-up process, the public and private sectors need to increase their efforts to support young people by providing training, technical assistance and small credits. Government must show commitment towards catering for its youth populace through developing a national employment strategy targeting youth , and An example of the attempt at linking education and training is the Nigeria’s National Open Apprenticeship Scheme in Nigeria under the Ministry of Labor and Productivity’s National Directorate of Employment. Under the scheme vocational education and training in more than 100 occupations are provided to unemployed young people. The programme uses production facilities such as workshops and technical instructors of private industries, government institutions and, by way of a subcontracting arrangement, wayside craftspeople and tradespeople (informal sector operators). Unemployed young people and school-leavers can train for six months to three years under reputable master craftspeople. To enhance trainees’ theoretical understanding of the trade in which they are involved, theory classes are organized every Saturday to complement the practical training received. Since the scheme’s inception in 1987 nearly 600,000 unemployed young people have received training, and 400,000 of them have started their own microenterprises.[12]
Internship programmes and entry wages that are below average wages are another way to give young people a chance to work. Many employers are reluctant to employ young people without experience. Working for a period with lower wages could give young people a chance to demonstrate their competencies and acquire new skills through learning-by-doing. The introduction of apprenticeships in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa has proven successful and could be replicated in other countries. Social entrepreneurs can also be of great use, if they refuse to hoard information and experience, but are willing to share expertise and advice to young and upcoming entrepreneurs.
Young people are growing up in a world of globalization and inequality, taking part in a development process that is simultaneously bringing people closer together and widening the divisions between them. They are in the process of establishing a sense of identity in what is essentially an insecure world, and this underlying instability may serve to magnify the tensions and lack of control they experience on a daily basis. They ought to be provided with the enabling environment where their entrepreneurial abilities can be leveraged on, towards achieving the Millennium Development Goal on poverty, and provide a stream for the growth of GDPs of nations.


[1] Kofi Annan
[2] UNDESA, “World Youth Report 2003.” (New York, 2004).
[3] UN, “World Youth Report 2003”. (New York, 2004).
[4] UNDP, “Unleashing Entrepreneurship Making Business Work for the Poor”. (New York, 2004).
[5] ILO, “Youth and Global Trends.” (Geneva, 2001).
[6] Rose, N., “Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought” (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, (1999). The process of modernization involved the breakdown of some of the more important institutions of traditional society such as the larger family, the fixed clan and agrarian village life to make way for urbanization and the beginnings of the wage-based industrial labour movement.
[7] Durham, D., “Youth and the Social Imagination in Africa: Introduction to Parts 1 & 2.” Anthropological Quarterly. Volume 73 Number 3. pp113-120. (2000).
[8] Boswell, C., and J. Crisp, “Poverty, International Migration and Asylum.” Helsinki: United Nations University/World Institute for Development Economics Research. (2004).
[9] CIPE, “The Prosperity Papers #1: Entrepreneurship.” Economic Reform Issue Paper, No. 0401. (Washington, 2004).
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ismail, O. and Alao, A., “Youths in the Interface of Development and Security.” Conflict, Security and Development. Volume 7 Number 1. pp3-25. (Routledge, 2007).
[12] Kanyenze, G., Mhone, G. and Sparreboom, T., “Strategies to Combat Youth Unemployment and Marginalization in Anglophone Africa.” Discussion Paper 14. Harare: International Labour Office, Southern Africa Multidisciplinary Advisory Team. (Harare, 2000).

JAWS

Aw, with this weather?
Let the bombs rain
Warmth come forth for
Those without a blanket
Merry where the cisterns leak
They will hug calabashes
And gamble away sanity
Like Zacheus, of Jenta Mangoro
They pay the taxman of spirits
And kill the fake heart within
Those without a heart fall
Within Jaws the city from chaos
Where anyone with some cash
Gets to thrust at Jaws
Sensitive mandibles between legs
There it burns the most
The rampaging fire in his tap
Seeking to be doused