ETHICS GUIDE WITH ISIAKA KEHINDE

Y - CATEM and  why it ended as another pipe  dream in Nigeria.

 

Sometimes, life throws a curve ball at us  and  our ability to push farther and make a success out of it makes a difference.

 

But , it's sad that in this part of the world, we always have a lofty dream  meeting a straight jacket at the point of implementation.

 

When Y-CATEM was flagged off  years ago  , 2009 to be precise by the then Minister in charge of youth development Senator Akinlabi Olasunkami. it was an elixir of hope and one would have thought it would open another vista for the country's electoral process, but like others, not surprising though,it met a brick wall.

 

Y - CATEM was  a brilliant acronym for  YOUTH CAMPAIGN AGAINST THUGGERY AND ELECTORAL MALPRACTICES.  The aim was to signal an ethical revolution on elections using our teeming youths as tools  to actualize it.

 

The Y - CATEM project was an initiative of the National Youth Council of Nigeria-the umbrella of all the youth organizations in Nigeria.  The programme was held in Conjunction with the independent National electoral commission,INEC and the federal ministry of Youth development between 28 and 29 September 2009 at the Women Development Centre,Abuja.

 

Apparently full of hope for  better days for Nigeria,the  NYCN president at the time, Sotade  George described the idea as a "unifying force that would unite all the stakeholders in the Nigerian Democracy Project and see to  the delivery of fair  and rancour- free elections".   We were preparing for 2019 elections then.

 

Arguably, majority of electoral crimes are penetrated by the youths being used by the politicians as cannon fodders.

My question is, since Nigeria youths constitute a large quota of the Nigerian population and as such form the fulcrum required to put cessation to any act capable of being the cogs in the wheels of electoral process what stops them from  recasting the situation?.

 

But delectable as Y-CATEM sounds , the project ended up in the tombstone of history largely because the Nigerian teeming youths are not yet determined to liberate the country and save it from the moral pit it is mired.

 

Also,there is no encouragement from the Ministry to walk the talks and set the Youths on the pathways of progress. They are only full of verbosity and no action like what Shakespeare calls "a story told by an idiot, signifying nothing".

 

The slimy rot will continue until the youths take the bull by the horn and starts with the revolution of the minds which  Patrick Henry, an American attorney and orator describes as " the seeds of all revolutions"

 

The Government itself needs to put the  economy on the mend , create enabling environment for Youth Employment from the current hopeless  Yahoo  or  over dependence  on amorphous  NGO state  and  save the ship of the country hurtling down the rapids. .

 

Isiaka-kehinde writes from Ibadan, Nigeria

I think, therefore I am.