I remember growing up, having dreams of what I wanted to be, things I could achieve and set right. Even at that age though fairly sheltered I could still sense that all may not always be well with those outside my protective shield or bubble. In between the smiles seen sometimes when we were on those forced family visits, families were readjusting and trying to make sense of the new economic realities.
Fast forward into my college and university days and I’d become an adolescent brimming with passion to effect positive change and ruffle the status quo. Along with many other like-minded thinkers in that generational bracket, we had often come to see many establishments of constituted authority as perpetuating a status quo of corruption, nepotism, and stark tribal blindness (this disease is when someone from your clan or group can do no evil). Maybe it was the teenage rebellious streak, but all we could see and say at that the time was that “our father’s generation” had failed us.
Politically and economically, all we could see were the same tried and often not successful hands being recycled again and again. It was easy for us to point the blame then, we saw what we thought were older, often out of touch people at the helm of affairs and we wanted to change that. We were unhappy with a lot of things, like the power situation, epileptic supply, and we felt we could do better. Economic policies didn’t seem like rocket science to us, just don’t put square pegs in round holes. For oil and natural resources development, the less said the better. Really? I mean, how difficult could it be to stop buying back from other countries the product you produce in the first place.
And so we arrived at the only possible answer we could find, we blamed it on the older generation. We said all sorts of things like; “They've been in power since I was a kid and they don’t want to let go”, “they keep picking and recycling themselves”, “why don’t they give young people a chance, I’m sure we can do better”. Motivated by all these mantras I decided to take the bull by the horns and try proactive development myself. I started volunteering, worked with women and young people, I made a conscious decision on trying to find out not only what the problems were but also how to solve them.
As the years rolled by, so much has changed, but so much is still the same. The electricity supply is still crappy, and hey, we still buy back the product we produce. We are not less corrupt now than we were before, work place nepotism and tribal blindness is still rife though now we don’t have the freshness of a civil war as an excuse.
I've looked around, and a lot of people in my father’s generation have either passed on or are in retirement. Though not fully there yet, but I've seen those who are in my academic or generation bracket (give and take 8 years) appointed into top positions, and some have and are vying for political office. The change I thought we would create hasn't come yet. Younger people are now in offices and position of influence or power across various sectors. Telecoms, Entertainment, and even Politics. Yet, our wanton disregard for development and sustainability is more evident now than ever before. The “I grab what I can and abandon ship syndrome” is so palpable you can almost taste it. Yet you see it in the way that we are prepared to loot the collective but boast about acquiring citizenship elsewhere. I have looked around, and realized that the generation that I thought was going to fix things and objectively set things straight is now “Among Us”, but all the signs are showing it may just be more of the same.
