When will the goat be strong enough to kill a leopard? Would remain not just a proverb but a rhetorical question because a generation of confused youths have allowed themselves to be mere pawns on the political chess board in our society.
What I find disheartening is the seeming inexorable rise in demonstrations and protests among the youths, in solidarity to those politicians supposedly painted with the tar of corruption.
It is becoming very difficult to fathom the bone of contention of some species of humanity in youth forms, whose stock-in-trade is to barricade the streets and institutions to wail in support of our permissive and profligate politicians, regardless of what the person is being accused of. Could such acts of unflattering servility be passed as fool hardiness or unquantifiable stupidity?
The one that defies not just logic but also philosophy was the inexcusable manner a generation afflicted by the worst side of corruption, last week Tuesday, barricaded the National Assembly complex and queued desperately like pipeline vandals in support of the embattled senate president, Bukola Saraki, who is facing trial over 13 count charges, including false and improper declaration of assets to CCB when he was governor of Kwara State— 2003-2011.
After watching the show of shame, I wept for those faceless and incapacitated youths of my generation who could best be described as "slaves in love with their chains". They have without any modicum of shame allowed themselves to be used as an object of public ridicule by desperate politicians who are on their way to public odium.
To those incongruous and venal youths, who have not only sold their conscience but have constituted themselves as crass supporters of impunity— nothing is wrong in such social opprobrium, as long as something will come out of it, no matter how meager it is.
Stupidity is when we blame our past leaders for dumping us in this hell hole we found ourselves but when such persons are called to come answer corruption charges against them, we make an abrupt and complete reversal of attitude, opinion or position in support of the accused persons.
It is an unmitigated irony that our political class who widened the inequality gap in the country to a large degree and those who are yet to find us a place in our national polity are the ones we have allowed to always toss us around like the devil's mail bag.
To those youths that obstreperously trooped out in support of the embattled Saraki, given their demeanor, it is justifiably stupefied that mentality of wretchedness was at play.
With such mentality of wretchedness, will the goat (which has been existing in the same world with the leopard) ever be strong enough to kill the leopard?
Joe Onwukeme *Enugu
