Intense discussion, conveying admiration,
rebuke, outrage as well as apprehensions concerning air travel in
Nigeria trails the heroism bordering on the suicide mission of Daniel
Oikhena, the 15 year-old boy who hid himself in the nose wheel apartment
of an Arik plane for the duration of a Benin to Lagos flight recently.
Daniel, a junior secondary school pupil assuming that the plane was
headed for the United States, had taken along some personal effects and
either outwitted airport security officials or was actually helped by
conniving personnel to position himself dangerously in one of the wheel
compartments of the aircraft.
As aviation experts have pointed out, had
the plane been going to the United States, the land of Daniel’s dreams;
the boy’s daredevil pranks would have ended in tragedy as he would not
have made it to his destination. Even for a short trip, given Daniel’s
location on the plane chances of survival were narrow but he was
providentially delivered from the wages of an overwrought imagination
riding on the abiding lure of overseas travel for young Nigerians. 11
out of 12 Nigerian youths you speak to would like to travel outside the
country, preferably to Europe or the United States and take up permanent
residence there, if possible. What exactly would you be doing out
there? “Anything”, the unfailing answer comes back, “I just want to get
out of this country and make a living”. Several of course have definite
plans to advance their careers and hopefully realise their aspirations
of a better life.
This generational disillusionment with a
country that has by default of governmental incompetence excised its
youths finds voice in protest lyrics composed by young Nigerians. A rap
artist some years back sneered ‘Nigeria jagajaga’ (Nigeria is deformed,
wearing an ugly face). Another young musician exploded some years ago in
pungent, depressive melody rendered in his native Yoruba (Egba)
dialect: “O ye white men please give me a visa; I am sick and tired of
this country; please give me a visa; there is no future; there is no
security, please give me a visa”. These poetic laments of the Nigerian
condition enshrined in memorable songs are counter narratives to a
managerial perspective of a nation, a land of opportunity transforming
into an economic powerhouse and a gradually consolidating democracy. But
what happens when the European and American embassies don’t grant visas
to young, often stranded Nigerians? They resort to stowaway exploits by
sneaking like Daniel into the wheel of a plane, or they settle for a
desert odyssey that will see them journeying through the forbidding
expanse of the Sahara desert through the Maghreb into the southern
fringes of Europe, the promised land. But even there the prospects are
far from promising, inviting a reflection on the Yoruba wisecrack – ile nle wa; ona nna wa (we are driven away from home; we are beaten black and blue in a foreign land).
A magnificent feature narrative on Cable News Network earlier
this week entitled ‘Europe’s lost generation’ depicts grippingly the
plight of young European graduates between the ages of 19 and 26 with no
jobs. As is well known, Europe is currently going through its worst
youth unemployment crisis in European history resulting in 26million
young folk without jobs. In worst hit countries like Spain, youth
unemployment rate is close to 60% triggering a wave of migration to
better off countries like Germany. One report informs that most European
graduates would have made 60 or more applications for a job before they
finally get one and what they get maybe frustratingly below expectation
as the majority of those employed do not have decent jobs.
How about the United States, the land of
Daniel’s romantic dreams? It is a country in the throes of mass youth
unemployment and underemployment as more than 10 million Americans under
25 are out of work. There is over 16% unemployment rate affecting
youths between the ages of 16 and 24; among Blacks and Latinos the rate
moves up to 36% and 28% respectively while in some cities like Chicago
the youth unemployment rate among Blacks is 90%. Described as an
economic emergency, the desultory job market in the United States
features many college graduates in low skilled and low wage jobs such as
serving tea or coffee while many have their careers frozen in
internships with no remunerations. In other words, many youths in what
is increasingly called the ‘generation jobless’ are not building up
human capital assets either through experience at work or time spent in
profitable study.
This, then is the other side of the coin
of the dream country of Nigerian youths where racial discrimination and
other difficulties associated with immigration may wreak additional
havoc. It is not clear whether Daniel and the generation of his older
brothers and sisters have bothered to refine their images of foreign
lands derived mainly from Nollywood and Hollywood portraits of a
land flowing with milk and honey with this side of the story; hence, the
desperate hustle to escape the social frying pan which admittedly
Nigeria had been turned into by its visionless leaders. Prof. Wole
Soyinka it was who created the expression ‘the wasted generation’ in the
context of the bedevilling throes and travails of Nigerian citizens
caught in the nightmares of postcolonial brutality. However, between
Nigeria’s wasting generation of youths for whom rudderless governments
have no plans and ‘Europe’s and America’s lost generation’ of teeming
unemployed youths, there appears to be little to choose if we
comprehensively reiterate the inconveniences of living in foreign lands
without adequate support. Of course, there is a countervailing
attraction of efficiencies associated with an industrialised culture in
contrast to the well known lags and woes of the Nigerian environment. No
doubt, travel can be fun and indeed constitutes an important part of
education and cultivation of the mind; what is frightening and disabling
is the Daniel-like attempted plunge into the uncertainties of a foreign
land without either the compass of enlightened stock taking or the fall
backs of a cushioning material order; more so, at a time of global
economic depression approaching the scale of the great burst of the
1930s.
As a university teacher, I’ve had the
good fortune of mentoring several Nigerian youths who started out in
lowly circumstances but ended up doing very well for themselves. One of
them for example, who started out as an office assistant received a
doctorate several years ago at the University of Lagos where he had been
employed as a lecturer and will this month defend his dissertation for a
second doctorate at a university in Australia before returning to his
job at Unilag. But that is a story for another day.
Our youths should be
motivated and taught that even though they, like their elders live under
the wings of a state that has orphaned them, there are escape windows
even in Nigeria that can prevent them from taking suicidal adventures on
the scale of the Nigerian stowaway in which they embark on journeys
from which there may be no return.
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