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If you have been travelling between cities, you must have come across them. In fact, you would have met them in the streets. Embarrassingly, you would however prefer to admit having had an encounter with them even in your village.
Call them whatever name you choose – they are our children. Though science has advanced human race to travel to as far as the moon, and on the planet mars, not a single child, youth, young man, young woman has descended from any other planet to our mother planet earth! They are born and bred by us human parents. The pages of newspapers, the TV screens and indeed police reports call them miscreants, thugs, hooligans, etc. But like branded products, they do carry specialised brand names with each bearing the manufacturer’s address.
For example, in Gombe town, their popular brand is called yan kalare; in Bauchi, yan Sara Suka; in Umuahia, Bakassi Boys; in Ibadan OPC Boys; in Kano, yan Daba; in Lagos, Area Boys; in Warri; kyan militia etc. In Hausa language the word "yan: means "children of" and equally "children that do the bidding of …" These children are not biological children of Kalare, Sara Suka, Bakassi, Daba, Oduduwa in the real sense but do have certain common antecedents, characteristics and social performances. They are unemployed youths. To put it bluntly they are youths who failed to come to terms with the reality. There is dignity in labouring in the farms including "Fadama," cocoa plantations, the fisheries, or in the mundane rearing of goats, sheep, pigs, rabbits, bees etc. Instead, they migrate to glittering cities.
As they find survival very difficult in the city, their peers would introduce them to "what would wipe out your sorrows." It is a form of intoxicant, may be, just sniffing (smoking) wee wee/Hashish, Marijuana, or the recently acquired cheaper rubber glue (patching solution) or the oral swallowing of assorted drugs like Benylin with codeine "haukata yaro" seeds. Amphetamine, cocaine and even the injection of heroine, any of these intoxicants can be further "washed down" with alcoholic shots – kaikai, burukutu lager, whiskey, brandy etc. Under the influence of these intoxicants, they feel "fine," euphoric, fearless, remorseless and so are easily to recruit in order to defend and advance their master’s victory or party.
In the last one year, as politicians vie for posts, the holding of meetings and addressing rallies have become their bread and butter. However, quite against natural expectation, one sees youths in political rallies carrying machetes, clubs, knives, daggers and guns etc. Some are seen wearing talisman, "laya," "gurus," horns of obscure animals, quite reminiscent of "boka," "babalawo" leading a native chief to an inter-tribal war. They hang precariously in the dangerously-driven often rickety buses while their master(s)are comfortably and safely shielded in Jeeps or Mercedes Benz cars.
A curious citizen, instead of being welcomed will be intimidated. You dare not refuse to comply even if you are the candidate of the opposing party. It is thus not surprising to see violent clash between supporters of opposing camps whereby mayhem is unleashed on innocent citizens.
It is often curious to find the eventual fate of these young people. The elections will come and go. The winners will surely not want to be associated with these misguided children. The masters’ new aides - personal assistants, security details, aide de camp, protocol staff and even gate men will barricade these burnt out fodder from their master.
These youths therefore get more disgruntled, disenchanted and desperate in the search for money to purchase the intoxicants they are deeply addicted to so as to cause more trouble. Innocent people often fall prey to their sordid actions. What do we, therefore do as parents, as communities, as local councils, state governments and indeed federal government?
It must be appreciated that this is a nation-wide tragedy that requires urgent attention. We already have a big harvest of such young people all over Nigeria. Curative measures and indeed rehabilitation and re-orientation should be pursued urgently and realistically. Weaning-off these people from their addiction would require sympathetic understanding, love, clinical expertise, societal support and religious active engagement. Faith based organisations, civil society organisations, youths organisations, physicians, clinical psychologists should support this emergency battle.
The governments and development partners should support so that our children are rescued from drifting into madness, crime and deprivation. Our dear mothers, individually or under the umbrella of National Council of Women Societies should take the lead. National conscience should be quickened not to allow our children waste away. Let us make farming more attractive and our factories more productive so that the youths will have useful engagements. The "masters" who sponsor the youths for criminal activities have moral duty to invest in their rehabilitation and value orientation.
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Adeshola
Adeshola Komolafe
Founder/Researcher
SAVE OUR FUTURE
Abuja
Nigeria
www.desholakomolafe.com
Email: adesholakomolafe@yahoo.com
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