THE POLITICS OF POVERTY AND ENSLAVEMENT THE YOUTH DILEMMA

The quality or state of being poor or indigent; want or scarcity of means of subsistence; indigence; need.

Any deficiency of elements or resources that are needed or desired, or that constitute richness; as, poverty of soil; poverty of the blood; poverty of ideas.

The above is the definition of poverty, universally acknowledged and it outlined all that is need to understand the impoverishment of our lives.

The rate of political corruption in Nigeria is progressively increasing with an upsurge in the number of cases where apparatus of government has become an instrument for the enrichment of members of political elites.

From pre-independence era to date, political corruption and its attendant problems in forms of vote buying, election rigging and manipulation, outright embezzlement by politicians have negatively affected the lives of Nigerians.

This has led to increased political apathy and distrust in the country’s fledging democratic ideals. In view of the foregoing, the blog will try to examines the extent of political corruption in Nigeria, in association to youth delinquency with its implications on poverty reduction.

Poverty Eradication Programme has not achieved desired results due to endemic political corruption. Therefore, to reduce poverty, immunities of politicians should be removed, law courts should be strengthened to adjudicate without fear and favour and public annual declaration of assets of political office holders should be made compulsory. In association to youth involvement,  the application of healthy uniform treatment of corruption should be sacrosanct.

Poverty is a worldwide predicament, no continent nor is any society immune to it. It deprives people of their basic human needs and it hinders community development and in the process spiraling various youth issues.

Families cannot afford to take their children to school and in the long run this leads to the children loitering the streets and will more than often resort to crime related activities because they lack the skills and knowledge to get proper employment.

Apart from education, resources like food, clean water and healthcare are not really accessible to the poor communities, leading to illnesses that usually end up taking the lives of these young people and that of their relatives.

Youth who endure growing up in poverty ridden communities are usually prone to suffer from social discrimination and exclusion which affects their emotional wellbeing. There are more social ills linked to poverty like teenage pregnancy and child bearing which is more prominent in poorer communities than in wealthy communities, the same goes for child marriages and HIV knowledge among youths. Statistics show that the number of girls being married before the age of 18 is higher in the poorest regions of the world particularly Eastern Africa, Western Africa and South Central Asia.

There are many factors that lead to poverty; misuse of environment in terms of intensive farming leading to soil erosion, desertification, overgrazing and deforestation that cause a decline in agricultural yields therefore increasing poverty.

Economic factors such as, tax haven-related issues and unfair terms of trade may also lead to poverty. Moreover, governance-based factors also contribute to poverty in regard to ineffectiveness in governmental performance, weak rule of law, and mismanagement of funds which are intended to cater for needs of the poor.

Relevant stakeholders have implemented strategies to eradicate poverty. Media fulfills a significant role in responding to and amplifying attitudes and ideas of society toward poverty. On the other hand a concern about poverty towards youth has attracted many non-governmental organizations to contribute through specially designed programs and actions for the purpose of eradicating poverty and poverty related issues suffered by young people.

Many governments are also hands-on the matter, they do not only highlight specific attention in a form of a particular initiative; they have various plans in place to eradicate poverty instead.

Mental slavery is a state of mind where discerning between liberation and enslavement is twisted. No matter how much books you read,  no matter how far you've gone in the level of knowledge you must have been enslave in one way or the other in the mental slavery, that is the problem of our youth today. 

Our youth today have become the slaves of their intellect, and could not distinguish between being intellectuals and in the other hands, intellectual slaves. having delve in to a fortress of intellectual slavery to serve the purposes of some politicians without or with their knowledge to be used as tools of oppression. 

Many Youth in Sub-Saharan Africa could not distinguished between the reality and delusion especially in the political set up. We tend to be lost in the market of pool, a stream of doubt and shun reality as our enemy. 

Many of us could not bear the burden of hard work to achieve a certain gold, we don't face our challenges to accomplishment, we always awaits a free of everything by being sconderial and because we always want to buttress our relationship with laziness,  we always keep the fake life to our breasts and we are happy with that.  Many of the youths I meet in the cause of writing this,  have one gold,  to be rich to be a millionaire but without a dream,  everyone I talked to would prepare being a politician than a technocrat or entrepreneur. We enjoy keeping a company of being errand than to be the producers ourselves. 

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The bitter thing in the life of a youth today is the non-challancy and being a deranged,  we always become a fan of failure and wishful disdain,  we assainated our characters and become a celebrity of all odds.

  Our youths today,  prepare being an errand instead of leading shining bright star,  going by the subjection of self to extreme lacklustre and we became the lost sheeps that scattered around without a compass.  We lost our compassion so we must pay for our sins. 

Our political endeavors are nothing like of development,  developing the ideal of change to our advantage,  instead,  we keep perambulating to oblivion and thus a sacrelege postmortem.  I wonder when we shall have a freedom of our division to be blissful of our lives,  we have the potentialities and we are quite educated and so we shall clinch the freedom to sleaze out of the mental slavery and grief of those elites that rendered our way of life as useless. 

I grew up to understand my position in my neighborhood,  I discovered that,  I'm so important to the State of many abilities that my younger ones can emulate from my struggles,  I lead by setting a standard because I wanted to be an example worthy of emulation.  We must rediscover ourselves and we must be free from mental slavery. 

Ahmad M. Salihu.