By Mr A. Bojang: CEO, Kabboumb Volunteers Foundation
BISMILLAHI RAHMANIR RAHIM
ALLHAMDULILAHI RAHBIL ALLAHMIN,
ALLHAMDULILAHI RAHBIL ALLAHMIN,
ALLHAMDULILAHI RAHBIL ALLAHMIN.
The Gambia College Management and Staff, The Gambia College Students’ Union and her Leadership, Student Leaders and Students from other schools here present, Honorable Guests Speakers, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen. All other protocols duly and respectfully observed. I dearly but humbly say Assalamualaikum Warahmahtullahi Wabarakathou to you all!
Today, I graciously stand before you all to give a short speech captioned: “The role of the Youths in National Development”
First, “Nations cannot be reformed without the reformation of the youth.”
— Hazrat Mirza Bashir-ud-Deen Mahmood Ahmad, founder of Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association
Remember, “Where you will sit when you are old shows where you stood in youth.” —Yoruba proverb
So as youths, where do we want to sit or be remembered in our old age?
Again, “When the roots of a tree begin to decay, it spreads death to the branches.” — Nigerian proverb
Therefore, as youths when we start to die, our nation and future dies with us.
In reality, “Where there is no truth and honesty; there will be no understanding and tolerance. FU DEHGA AMUT, DEHGO DOU AMM”- Alieu Badara Joof, Gambia’s former Vice President
SO BE ALWAYS TRUTHFUL, THAT IS NATION BUILDING AND AT ITS CORE AND PUREST!
“National development is the capacity of the country to raise the standard of living of its residents. It can be achieved by providing individuals with basic livelihood requirements and supplying them with employment, etc.
Now that these are put into context and perspective; I will meekly do my best to discuss the role of youths in national development especially in the Gambian and African context.
An old maxim says, the world is three days. Yesterday, Today and
Tomorrow. In reality, there shall be no Today without Yesterday; equally there shall be no Tomorrow without Today. Yesterday is gone; Today is here; Tomorrow is certainly in the making and shall come to pass!
I want to tell you and authoritatively for that matter, the world equally has three categories of people. The Old Generation, the Youth and the Future Generations to come. In each of these categories, you have the observers, the participants, and the third and most pivotal category is the observers and participants.
They not only observe but highly participate to bring about the much needed sustainable, progressive and inclusive change based on their observed strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This third category and role is that of the youths.
For any country to attain successful national development; the percentage of observant and participative youths must be double the other categories combined.
As youths, what Yesterday became of, is not our fault. What tomorrow becomes is squarely dependent on us and must be our focus. If the world were a fruit tree; we are the very stem connecting the roots to the branches.
The quality of the fruits of this tree is dependent on how efficient we-the stem serve our duty to the branches and the roots.
The type of national development we shall have is largely our discretion and precipitation as youths. The good, inclusive and progressive future of the Gambia, Africa and of the entire globe depends on the quality of our discipline and patriotism, our vision, our knowledge and skills, our commitment and dedication to serve in order to bring forth that future, our common future.
The level and quality of national development attainable is highly dependent on how qualitative our education, our economy, our health and health care is and how romantic we are attached with the future. This is where the government comes in.
…At the center of all these, is creativity and innovation of the youths. Yes, the government must be blamed.
However, it is equally crucial to ask:
Who is the government?
What is the majority of the population?
What rate of participation is the majority supplying the national development agenda?
Whose future is getting decided and are they involved?
What are the cardinal pillars to sustainable and inclusive national development?
What training, skill and knowledge is needed and supplied to the future deciders and makers?
Now, a holistic response to these national development concept checking questions reveals that: the youths are the government, youths are the majority, the drivers of any meaningful government are the youths, the future of the youth is what is getting decided, all the efforts in education and research, skills and decision making is for the youths. Now, it is time for us to not wait to be invited but to participate and serve. For we must take part because it is us whose future is getting decided. And that is one of the many ways we can take our much needed yet secluded role in nation building.
Furthermore, the youths must have the right discipline, vision, knowledge, skills, and patriotism to ask but the right questions and at the right time.
What happens to our lives and that of the future is not based on the answers but the questions we ask, and at what time we ask them. Wrong questions attract wrong answers and wrong answers do not only get us unsolved and unresolved but deepen our problems even more.
As youths, we must be good observers and listeners, be good askers of good questions to our problems and national development. These right and timely questions must be based on a clear and informed vision of what we want of ourselves, country and future.
As youths, why must we ask good questions?
Because the right answers to these questions are what help lay the foundations to the process of raising the standards of living of our people- our mothers, our fathers, wives and husbands, siblings and unborn generations now and the future.
Education and training, one other way our role and contribution becomes significant and aligned with our vision and common future is through our acquired knowledge and skills. If anything matters and greatly impacts how we contribute towards national development, it is the level and quality of our education and training.
Part of what Islam and all other religions teach, is acquisition of knowledge, and its significance. In Islam, Surah Al-ʻAlaq or The Clot, is the 96th chapter of the Qur’an, emphasized in this Surah is knowledge and interestingly the first of revelations to Our Beloved Prophet Muhammed SAW and first of commandments of Allah SWT prophet SAW.
Business and entrepreneurship, what stimulates and drives national development is the economy. What sustains and immunizes the economy of any country is business and entrepreneurship. As youths, we must not only take stock of this but be straight -shooters and take the lead in business and entrepreneurial endeavors today and now. If a better and sustainable Gambia is our interest, we must invest and own businesses.
Nothing sustainably benefits us, our family and country more than business and entrepreneurship. You want to build the nation, self- actualize; take the route of business and entrepreneurship; it is the sure way to our role and contribution to national development.
Creativity and innovation, generating new and implementable ideas to solve individual, community, national, regional and global problems depend on the power of creativity and innovation of the youths. So, as youths, part of what we must do to solve and contribute towards national development is being creative and innovative towards our issues and self.
A country without creative and innovative youths is like beating a dead horse or a country with very potent youth but only with completely barren women; no procreation, no future.
Lastly, political awareness and participation, how our national development is driven, sustained and improved is largely based on the quality of our political awareness and political participatory roles and rates. Avoiding and claiming clean for politics is like playing clean for toilet visits. You can’t just avoid it. As youths and majority stakeholders in many countries and jurisdictions; we must understand that the level of our roles in politics and governance directly affects national development.
Before I take leave of you, I will humbly leave you with these life changing and inspirational quotes:
“If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not making decisions.”
– Catherine Cook, MyYearbook
“If you start with nothing and end up with nothing, there’s nothing lost.”
– Michael Dunlop, Income Diary
“The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.”
– Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook
“There are a lot of rich people in the world. There are very few people who have the privilege of getting to invent things that billions of people use.”
– David Karp, Tumblr
“Show me the heroes that the youth of your country look up to, and I will tell you the future of your country.”
― Idowu Koyenikan, Wealth for all Africans
“The powers of world-building are all encoded in you. Bring those codes to life and write the world anew.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Either Reformist or Terrorist
SO BE ALWAYS TRUTHFUL, THAT IS NATION BUILDING AT ITS CORE AND PUREST
