A World in Transition: Sitting and smiling on a ticking time bomb – By Alfred Ali Damiyal DAPAL

“Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime”
-Aristotle

‘An idle mind is the devil’s workshop’ is a popular saying that has become a cliché in the English language, however it is an apt saying for our condition in Nigeria.

Of late we have been inundated with news of ritual killings in Plateau State, something we used to see and hear about only in the news and Nollywood movies, has come to us.
It is easy to look at insecurity on the Plateau in the light of external aggression, and neglect the internal insecurity that has been festering quietly for years that seems to have finally bloomed.
Look at the recent cases of ritual killings, the kidnap cases, the gang related violence in some parts of Jos and the other vices observed that has caused the State mantra “Home of PEACE and…” to sound like something for the history books or an irony at best.
We who live and work outside the State are often times hesitant to come home, often disguising our arrival and sneaking in ‘Nicodemously’ and we who reside in the State are leaving in a perpetual state of heightened fear and anxiety, jumping at the sight of our shadows and sleeping with the proverbial ‘one eye open.
Take a look at all the arrests made for cases of ritual killings, gang violence, banditry (from Fulani herdsmen aka terrorists) and armed robbery – a common denominator observed is YOUTH.
The decadence of our society is a reflection of its inability to purposefully and productively engage the young people.
With unemployment in Plateau State estimated at 26.5% (and among young people the rate goes to over 35%)…this is a scary and alarming statistic. And it gets scarier when we add figures of people that are under-employed.
When parents come home to a hungry family they can’t afford to feed and meet their needs, when young people finishing school see graduates in their ‘angwa’ who have spent 4, 5 years without any meaningful job; all these create an outlook of a hopeless future. A seemingly hopeless future which pushes people into dangerous vices from kidnapping, prostitution, yahoo-yahoo (and the ‘plus’) etc all these fuels our internal insecurity.
We are at a point where the only role models’ young people and children see are yahoo-boys showing off their flamboyant lifestyles and slay queens making a living hopping on and off the beds of sugar daddies, and all ending in a life that is all about the glam…or the ‘gram’ in our modern day lingua.
Poverty na bastard.
We need to provide an alternative to this narrative because we are fast losing our humanity. We need to address this by providing a productive escape, and providing one quickly before the penchant for making quick money regardless of the means makes us lose our sense of honesty, innocence and hard work.
We need to create an environment where productivity thrives.
We see our talented entertainers run off to Lagos or stay back here and leave in penury, our fruits and vegetables…literal sweat of our farmers rot at local markets or sold-off at unprofitable prices because of an absence of storage facilities and direct access to markets down South, trucks upon trucks of mined mineral ore leaving the State headed for China with no value added and artisanal miners worse off than they Started, we see businesses die in the State due to poor ‘Ease of Doing Business’ metrics – from delays due to bureaucracy of approving government agencies to a lack of credit facilities.
As 2023 draws near, we need a government that will be deliberate in restoring the productivity of the State; we have moribund industries like Jos International Breweries (JIB) that should be revived via partnership with a Nigerian Breweries or a Guinness PLC, climate and soil conditions that support the growth on internationally traded Agric-products like cotton, wheat and coffee, a hydro-power electric company that has not expanded its capacity to effectively power the State and bring about an industrial revolution, and not to forget the abandoned warehouses when farmers are experiencing post-harvest losses.
Thinking about these all I see are opportunities for JOBS…JOBS….JOBS.
We need to get our people working, we need to get our people earning, we need to get our people productive, we need to get our people wealthy, we need to get our people economically empowered.
These should be on our minds as we establish yardsticks for evaluating the next crop of leaders to be elected because truthfully, we cannot afford many more years of economic stagnation.
An opportunity for real change beckons, Plateau needs new and bold ideas to usher in the re-birth we seek.

Alfred Ali Damiyal DAPAL

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A World in Transition: Sitting and smiling on a ticking time bomb – By Alfred Ali Damiyal DAPAL