Making the future secure for children, youths

The prevalence of child abuse and abandonment in Nigeria is caused basically by two factors. These are the inability of parents to adjust themselves to modernisation and traditional tasks of childrearing, and the political and economic hardships in the country.

All the other factors are subsumed under these two basic factors. The government and parents have often been heard saying that “Children are the future,” with little or no action taken to make the future conducive for them.

In a country of daily aggrandizement, lies and propaganda, life is made very hard for the children of the common people, with the government making empty promises about the future.

As a writer, Lilian Kantz, puts it: “Each of us must come to care about everyone else’s children. We must recognise that the welfare of our children is intimately linked to the welfare of all other people’s children.

“After all, when one of our children needs life-saving surgery, someone else’s child will perform it.

“If one of our children is harmed by violence, someone else’s child will be responsible for the violent act. The good life for our own children can be secured only if a good life is also secured for all other people’s children.”

Our career-focused parents give little or no attention to their children, yet they still say that they are the future.

They have forgotten the immortal words of Marrianne Williamson, to wit: “There is no single effort more radical in its potential for saving the world than a transformation of the way we raise our children.”

We live in a society that neglects children’s views, where children sleep and wake up without any hope of getting the basic needs of life.

Chhildren are the future of the world, they say, but these are just words. We the youths will live to become great but how can we when we cannot even think straight?

We still live in a world of illusion, unaware of what tomorrow holds.  Yet, they promise us the future.

All that Nigerian children and youths need is teamwork. As youths and children, we should team up, confront and challenge the frivolous and callous decisions by our leaders who trade away our future.

Since I was a baby, they have all been singing “Children are the leaders of tomorrow,” the same song my dad heard as a child.

Who are the future? The future is the present Nigerian children and youths.

When is the future? The future is the next five seconds, in case you don’t know.

There is no future, my fellow Nigerian children and youths.

People set their minds on the future, not knowing that the future is now and will soon become the past. And yet again, the future.

Bamidele Williams

Lagos