I was on my way to the Madrasah, as far back as 2007, when I encountered a strange scene. On that fateful day, I saw a lizard trying to scale a tree. As it was, there was no youthful expedition more novel to a young chap from Ilorin, than killing lizards and riding bicycle. We could stake anything on it. Whereas we can get something out of killing lizards by selling them to local herbs merchants, we get the best of feelings by spending the proceeds on rentage of bicycle.
So, you could imagine my ectasy to get the ruffled Lizard killed. And I won’t deny I wasn’t ready to charge, when something mysterious happened. A quite bigger and visibly older Lizard appeared and scaled up the tree. The same tree which had been a nightmare before to my subject matter, Little Lizard. I was still trying to go at it again when the same lizard returned back and had the troubled one on his back up the tree. I was stunned! Obviously, it was a show. I just remembered it today.
Something happened in 2014, I was a fresh student at Kwara State Polytechnic, Ilorin. Straight out of High School, Polytechnics was just another place to spend the years learning the workings of the Time, running or ruining a Dream and the chasms of Freedom and Fiefdom. It’s instructive to note that freedom to teenagers and juvenile is a double-edged sword that must be weilded rightly. Something different to this, crystallised to inability to control and regulate the chasms of Freedom which often erupt to a Fiefdom. And Fiefdom in their own case (Teenagers/juvenile) means a world of there own; often, a world of peril, a world of no return.
I was bouncing through to the Hot Cake Restaurant, arguably the most famous buka in the Polytechnic then, ( apparently, now repackaged) to get some stuffs to hold the belly when a visibly no-good lanky, young man accosted me. His message; “Shakur is calling you”. Well, I followed. That one didn’t waste time in sending the doom message to me when two good slaps landed on my googled-face. Out of fright, I passed down everything I had on me. That day, yours sincerely could have been rebirth into a fiery monster, demon and bloodletting jackal if I hadn’t met a Muslim brother, who must have saw through me, anger and rage. His question; “What will you gain by being this way? Ask yourself what anyone or you had ever gained in the past by being down, angry and infuriated to the point of death?”.
It’s not long ago I met Tajudeen Habeeb Omotosho. His name before then, had always been a company to the wind blowing past my ears despite his pronounced writing prowess and renowned Uniosm history. Never matters. Perhaps because he’s also a bibliophile, it wasn’t long before I became his protege. I had sought for books from him, and that was it, the beginning of camaraderie. Someday, I called to talk to him. I went with a head full of worries but by his words, my heart became lighter than a pack of cards. Maybe they call it mentorship.
These anecdotal reports had happened at one different points or the other but their single effect cannot be overstated in shaping me today. The lizard story taught me Comradeship early on; the need for relationship and the importance of friendship.
The Polytechnic ritual almost enraged me to the point of death. I felt I was cheated and molested and wanted revenge. I could have gone to any length to get it which might have necessitated to my being initiated to a cultist. Someone stepped in for me.
Tajudeen Habeeb, in recent times, oiled my engine with words. He revved me up while I was about letting insecurity and low self-esteem, as a result of a dreaded mistake in the past, kill me. Can you see the impacts of mentorship?
Sorry, I had you stuck with rhetorics all this while. We might have gotten to the crux now. In the unwritten book of Class, the Lords even in death do not fade away but with reduced influence, they become so forgotten. The Subjects aren’t so because of height or weight but for lack of reach, and influence.
But, Who then, are the Lords in Kwara State?
Before you start counting the beanpoles, please allow me point at the real beans for you.
To be a Mentor, is being one’s Lord. A guardian, father, friend, adviser, disciplinarian and foe. You get guidance when faced with delimma, get a father when you needed Love, he/she gives you company like a friend and advises like a teacher but becomes a foe when you start derailing. A foe to the youthful folly.
But how many do we have in Kwara Political Circle?
I see everyone with a Principal but how many have a mentor in them?
We talk about youthful deliquency, drug abuse, thuggery and hooliganism, everyday. We point at the family, society and the government forgetting the people whose hands; wrong hands our youth fell to. I know, how vastly unbelievable, the person you like or love influence you.
Have you ever thought what it would be like if our beloved politicians and leaders would stop being Principals but Mentors? Kwara’s unwritten political and socio-economic ideology is Principality instead of Mentorship.
We hear in earnest, everyone’s lamentations and songs of sorrow about the youth being immoral, unemployed and uncultured. It has even become some modern music melodic to our hearings. After all, when lies are repeated vigorously, they start taking semblance of the truth. The question to ask ourselves is; what are these elites doing to effect a change? Have they been steadfast in their roles as mentors too?
So what if they had Mentors instead of Principals?
Like I was, there are thousands Kwara youth out there needing just to behold your sight, your presence alone could heal their wounds. Your words would lift their spirits and your thoughts would become their guides. But have you ever been there? Kwara youth lacks morals because they lack moral compass.
Shall we, in this time of evolution, still be waiting for Government to do everything? Should we assume politics dictates principality and not mentorship?
This is a new clarion call. Though politics have come and go but politics is our breath, it dies the day we did. The greatest way to play politics, if at all we even know, understand and follow the definition, is building the people to achieve a common goal.
How are Kwara elites building the youth?
It’s still largely novel to see them, the big fishes, swimming in the sea of students, teaching them how to swim and navigates the many tides of life. Save a vintage Lawal O. Olohungbebe, and sparingly; Bolaji Abdullah, Lukman Mustapha and Hakeem Lawal, that I have seen at one point or the other, honouring academic invitations to mentor, lecture, norture and bread the youth with words of wisdom and encouragement, majority make newspapers and press releases their Chalkboards and Classrooms. What’s with the Leadership toga? Are our schools forbidden places? The Leaders build people for them to build the society!
It’s about time Kwara’s A- list politicians, leaders and successful businesspersons do a restrospection, evaluation and re-evaluation of their beliefs, values and ideologies. The world have evolved to that point when you don’t wait till next four years to roll by to get seen or heard aside through press releases. The only way to live now is to plant your consciousness into the mind of younglings so that it grows with them just in time.
It should even be seen as a sense of duty and responsibility to humanity to honour invitations to nurture, lecture, mentor and inspires the youth. After all, a moral youthful population makes a just society. Telling the youth your success stories will go no small length to sharpen their vision, shapen their thoughts, broaden their insights and raise their beliefs. Stories are best heard from the horse’s mouth!
It’s not enough to implore, charges and enjoins the government to prioritize the youth. What are you doing to help them? If nothing, take to public speaking/appearance today! Build the youth to achieve your dreams.
And this, is a clarion call, to awaken you all from slumber, to get to grip with your responsibility as elderly ones as torchbearers and Legacy makers. After all, they said the horse racing from the back has the one in front to cut his chase. Who are the Kwara youth horses in the front to cut their chase?
What if we have you practically nursing the youth to life through mentorship?
Ibraheem Abdullateef, a Social and Public Analyst writes from Ilorin. He can be reached via ibraheemabdullateef09@gmail.com.