By Progress Godfrey, Abuja
Former Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, Cardinal John Onaiyekan, has advised the Nigerian government to listen to the yearning of the youths for peace and development.
The Cleric worried that young people were not given opportunity to participate in governance, despite their readiness to work, and Nigeria’s history of youthful leadership.
Onaiyekan spoke at a National Youth Summit Awards and Book Presentation, organised by the Christian Youths for Peace and Development Initiative (CYPDI), in Abuja on Tuesday, themed: “Emerge: Inspiring Tomorrow’s Innovation for Sustainable Youth Development.”
According to him, the #EndBadGovernance protest was a reflection of the failure of government to provide an atmosphere for youths to thrive.
He said, “Right now in Nigeria, the young people want to participate, to contribute — they are full of energy to act for peace and development of the nation, but maybe because those who control affairs in the nation are old people like me, they have not been given adequate attention, sufficient peace, encouragement to come out on their own and do things the right way.
“I can understand the impatience of the young people and when mr President tells young people to be patient, I’m not sure whether he was very patient when he was 30 years old. The young people cannot be patient, they should not be patient, because if they are patient, they will just sit down and do nothing. They should show how they are anxious to get things moving and to get change that will improve the country. They cannot be patient, because how long do we want them to wait?
“And if you look at the history of Nigeria, starting from the colonial era, it was young people who took on the fight. Nowadays, when we look at the pictures of Awolowo and Zik, Sardauna of Sokoto, we think that they were old men. They were not. They were young people in their 30s and 40s.
“With the 10 days of #EndBadGovernance protests, you saw the young people coming out in large numbers. They were not coming out to insult anybody. They didn’t say that. They didn’t say they were ending Tinubu’s government, they simply said they wanted to end bad government. Is anything wrong with that?”
“We all must be seen to be trying to end bad government, because what has come up is that we all seem to agree that we can do better than what we are doing, as far as governance and the management of Nigeria is concerned.
Onaiyekan, who is the Chairman, Board of Trustees of the Christian youth group, stressed the need to pursue peace using religious values so that religion becomes an asset towards peacebuilding.
He blamed the lingering economic setback on the inability of the government to create wealth.
“My understanding is you must create wealth if you want to be comfortable, unless you want to steal. And we hope we are not giving young people the impression that the only way to be comfortable in this nation is to get a job where you can steal.
“You must create wealth. We must create an environment for young people to be able to work both with their hands and with their brains, and it is not young people that will create this environment. This is why we have government.
“Government should find a way, and the government, in creating this environment, should find ways and means of listening to what the young people are saying, and how they want to be helped,” he said.
Also speaking, Director-General of the Christian Youth Development Initiative, Ambassador Dr Simon Dolly appealed to Youths to embrace dialogue for peaceful resolution of crisis and concerns.
“Development will never take place in the atmosphere of rancour; when there is a crisis like the one we witnessed just a few days ago — the protest for 10 days, you know, has caused a lot of setbacks to this nation.
“You know how much money has been lost to businesses that collapsed. That is why we are calling on youth to always give peace a chance. And a situation whereby things are going wrong, we should use the way of dialogue to resolve some of this crisis,” he asserted.
Dolly also pointed out the need to love one another and be ‘our brother’s keeper’ for Nigeria to move forward.
“Our cardinal principle as religious leaders is to pray for our leaders and support them. That’s what we do, but when we begin to curse our leaders, say all kind of things, our country will not move forward, we will always go backward. And if you see the major problem we have in this country, the challenges, issue that we don’t love each other, if we are brother’s keeper in this country, this country will move forward,” he further said.
The President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, Archbishop Daniel Okoh, represented by Archbishop Johnpraise Daniel, said, “Life doesn’t give you what you want. Life gives you what you demand. The youths must arise and look at what is ahead of them.
“It’s not by violence. It doesn’t come by protesting. We can protest in our minds and decide how we want to shape our future.
He called on government to understand that everyone has a stake in the country, and do something to make Nigeria great.