The Benue South Senatorial candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Comrade Daniel Onjeh, has urged the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, to support President Bola Ahmed Tinubu‘s administration and its policies, assuring the students’ body that Nigeria is currently in a state of both economic and social recovery.
Comrade Onjeh in a speech titled, ‘State of the Nation: The Role of Students in Nation-Building’, delivered at the Senate Retreat and Symposium of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), held at the National Merit House, Maitama, Abuja, on July 13 2023 stated that Nigeria is currently in a state of economic and social recovery. He noted that, hitherto, the nation had plummeted in all political and socioeconomic indices to the point that some scholars had christened it a failed state.
After the obligatory definition of terms, Onjeh went straight to the meat of the matter by stating that nation-building is a dynamic process that requires the active involvement of all segments of society, not only the political class and that it must involve students, young people, all genders, the business community, civil servants, persons with special needs, etc. Furthermore, he stated that people can make their nation greater with their imaginations, thoughts, and dreams. Hence, students can become better citizens, and better citizens will build a better nation.
Students, Comrade Onjeh stated, are agents of positive social transformation, and that as a nation, we must take their involvement in nation-building beyond mere rhetoric. Students, he opined, can help to foster national unity, integration, and cohesion. They can break the shackles of illiteracy and the religious/ethnic bias that have plagued our society.
Speaking on transformation, Onjeh said it must start from within us. ‘To this end,’ Onjeh stated, ‘we must embrace honesty, and be fully committed to self-development in all spheres of our lives. We must…ensure that we fully deploy our skills, talents, and experiences to render selfless services for the good of our communities and the nation.’
To be better agents of nation-building, Onjeh said, students must be responsible and law-abiding citizens. They should help in entrenching justice and equity in society and in taking the initiative of creating employment opportunities for themselves utilizing their skills, talents, and knowledge. This, he stated, is better than graduating from tertiary institutions only to swell the ranks of job seekers that jostle for the limited job opportunities available.
Furthermore, Onjeh stated that many students are involved in social vices because the sight of their predecessors roaming the streets in search of jobs many years after graduation has killed their spirit. We, Onjeh enjoined, need to build optimism in our students.
Onjeh stated that we need to find ways to create jobs and make our nation human resource-rich like Japan. He gave the example of India and China. Both have higher populations than Nigeria, but because of their highly skilled human resource base, their young people are gainfully employed in the design and production of mobile phones, tablets, and other electrical and electronic gadgets, some of which we use in our country today.
The fight against corruption, Onjeh believes, should start from schools. School authorities must be accountable; students must not engage in examination malpractices which is moral corruption. By so doing lecturers will desist from requesting cash for sex or marks. If corruption is not checked at the school level, students will graduate into corrupt politicians, civil servants, and business people, and continue the vicious cycle.
Onjeh stated that the government needs the input and support of students in the formulation, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of its policies and programmes. To gain this support, it must endeavour to bring them into the mainstream of national issues by acquainting them with its policies and programmes.
Speaking on leadership, Onjeh asserts that government at all levels should cultivate a culture of leadership succession. Using Ghana as an example, he recounted how the country has been providing opportunities for its young people to take up sensitive positions of leadership in its central government. He cited the example of Hon. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa (the President of the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) in 2006) who has served as a Federal Minister in the Republic of Ghana on two occasions; first as the Minister of Communications and subsequently as the Minister of Education. Comrade Ablakwa is currently serving as a Member of the Ghanaian Parliament. Comrade Onjeh also gave the example of Comrade Janga Augustus Kowo (the President of the Liberian Students Union (LINSU) in 2006) who is currently serving as both the Comptroller-General and the Accountant General of the Republic of Liberia. Both Ablakwa and Kowo were Onjeh’s contemporaries when he served as the President of the West Africa Students Union (WASU) in 2006.
Musing on the challenges Nigerian youths face, Onjeh lamented the fact that “much of their energies are dissipated in acts of cultism, violence and brigandage, drug abuse, etc.”
He blamed this state of affairs on the protracted period of military incursion in politics which had engendered a militarized society and made our youths prone to violence and militancy. Democracy, he averred, didn’t really help in demilitarizing our youths. On the contrary, some egocentric politicians take advantage of the militant inclination of the youth to engage them in electoral violence and fraud.
Onjeh pointed out that, “any youth who dares confront corruption, violence, and social vices (even amongst the youth) is targeted.”
To buttress this point, he cited the gruesome murder of Comrade George Iwilade (a.k.a. Africa), the former Secretary General of the Obafemi Awolowo University Students’ Union, who, along with four others, was killed in cold blood for daring to fight against campus cultism and exploitation. Comrade Onjeh, however, urged student leaders not to allow this sort of threat to deter them from standing up for the truth and against exploitation.
Comrade Onjeh enjoined the leadership of Nigerian students to change their approach to agitation to conform with our current democratic reality. Previous NANS leaderships, he observed, might have operated at the barricades during the military era and in the early days of the Fourth Republic but, gradually, our democracy is taking firm roots. Therefore, he stated, henceforth, their engagement should be intellectually inclined. He believes if students channel the tremendous energies they dissipate in violent agitation, cultism, drug addiction, and other social vices towards nation-building, Nigeria will doubtless assume its place of pride in the comity of nations.
Furthermore, Onjeh stated that “As a former National and sub-regional student leader, I stand on a good pedestal to advise the present generation of student leadership to always imbibe the culture of using dialogue, rather than violent confrontations, in resolving issues.’’
He urged student leaders to be prepared to sit at the negotiating table.
Nigerian students, Comrade Onjeh opined, can contribute significantly to nation-building through awareness creation. They can help to sensitize and conscientize society in the area of skill acquisition. Those who are I.T. savvy can help to educate the elderly and the uneducated on modern digital communication. They can also teach vital skills like shoemaking, carpentry, welding, phone and computer repairs, etc.
Comrade Onjeh stated that contrary to popular belief that one must have a huge war chest to participate in partisan politics or stand for public office in Nigeria, all that is needed to do is to enlighten the society and make them conscious of the choice of leadership that they truly deserve.
Speaking on the future of the nation, Onjeh noted that although our population is growing exponentially, our development is not growing at a commensurate rate. This, he stated, constitutes a great security threat to the nation. He enjoined students to begin thinking of the future. Thoughts of it, he stated, should help to guide their advocacy from now on.
Onjeh urged NANS to begin sponsoring private bills to the National Assembly. These bills, he explained, should seek to forge a better and saner society, strengthen our political institutions and boost our economy to the end of closing the unemployment gap. Unemployment is one of the challenges Nigerian youths are grappling with. Having a large number of unemployed youths poses a grave security threat to the nation. Unemployed youths can easily be recruited for acts of insurgency and insurrection. A youth that is gainfully employed will not be easily disposed to conscription into criminal and terrorist gangs.
Comrade Onjeh commended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for signing the Students’ Loan Bill into law. He stated that if the law is diligently implemented it, ‘…will ensure that indigent students can be more focused on their studies, instead of taking up menial jobs to meet up the costs of their tuition fees and upkeep in school.’
In closing, Comrade Onjeh encouraged the leadership of NANS to rally around Mr. President and to give him the support needs to succeed with his policies and programmes. He stated that Nigeria is blessed to have a president who believes in the youth and in leadership succession. Tinubu, he stated, has demonstrated his love for the youth beyond doubt by grooming several young leaders in the past, especially when he served as Governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2007.
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