A NEW GENERATION FOR AFRICA

[Nfuken Ntembam Tecla ep Neba]

Most of our leaders never went through any capacity development programmes to build them to meet the demands of their job description. With some, even their educational background was not oriented towards their job. In most cases their parents, uncles or other relatives were presidents, ministers, or occupied top ranking positions in government, and therefore had the possibility of lobbying for other relatives and family friends to be absorbed in to high ranking government positions as well. It is not like they had the aspiration of becoming such persons, or the capability of handling such responsibilities. Finding one’s self in such a position by chance, the interest of the people will more likely not be at heart.

It has also been observed that the children of administrators aspire to become administrators, so the children of the presidents and others around the president aspire to become presidents, ministers and other top ranking officials. Children from the royal families aspire to become the fon or the chief of the village, and those from great farmers, aspire to have larger farmlands than their parents. With evolution in development, some children from palaces and “farmer-houses” are facing the global village with changing ideas, of moving out of what their parents are doing, but their minds are still far from the presidency and major national, regional and divisional leadership position. This mind frame maintains the same set of people permanently handling the main influential leadership positions in society, and their characteristics flow from parents to offspring.

In an attempt to eradicate this phenomenon, we are starting the first edition of a capacity development programme for children, Foundation Forum for Children, (FOUNDFORCHILDREN), an initiative to build the capacities of children leaving elementary schools to face the difficulties of secondary education, resist peer pressure, build integral professional foundation and to know and face other development challenges later in life. This will serve as a good platform for the enhancement of their capacities and pave the way to a development profession or leadership position with integrity. In this way, we will start developing the minds of children to think logically, make decisions without fear or favor and without financial influence.

Our children from Village schools, some of those from public schools and denominational elementary schools in town have, never touched a computer. Most of these schools have no teaching aid and no committed teachers. Most of these disadvantaged children, leaving from these schools go to secondary schools without any notion of what it takes to develop from one stage of life to another, so the waves of life toss them to various directions, till they find themselves in one unwanted and more disadvantaged situation.

Usually, the majority of children who do not succeed in secondary schools, stem from a poor foundation in elementary education. Out of school, some have never had the opportunity of taking part in any gathering of children or children’s development forum, for lack of the means to pay for such opportunities. The majority cannot take part because they have to go to the farms or sell with their parents to make ends meet.

With the successful implementation of such an ambitious programme, even the most disadvantaged child will have the possibility of consciously going through secondary school, they will be current with recent happening and every child will have almost equal opportunities.

What is disheartening is the fact that corruption is not only in the high positions of authority. It is at every level of the administration, it is even in our small meeting groups and anywhere that somebody is assigned to take responsibility. The few who try to be objective and transparent in carrying out their activities are discredited, isolated and blasphemed by the corrupt. However the other group members usually belief and confide in them when they get to understand the situation. It takes a man to stand against corruption in leadership. So even in small njangies, meetings, CIG and associations, anti corruption strategies and programmes are necessary. In many cases, the corrupt benefit from the ignorance of the uneducated, and the negligence of the educated.

I tell you it is unimaginable that even in churches, individual assume leadership positions in councils, commissions and even in prayer groups for personal benefits.
We are so dissolved in this solvent of corruption that we need to apply enormous heat for the corruption to evaporate from our systems, but we have become so entangled in the corruption web that any attempt to considerably erase corruption will need so much heat which may also take lives away.

 
I don’t master what obtains in other parts of the world, but if the happenings in Our Land are a true reflection of our minds, then there is work.
So as we struggle to develop one anti corruption strategy after the other, let’s also be molding a New Generation of African Leaders.
In this way we will scrape off this “Corrupt Leadership” from our resourceful, beautiful and beloved African continent.
Tecla

[Bakoena Chele]

While I agree with you Nfuken, about the central role of the family in not just bringing up children but doing so well the problem is also that the very same elders are frustrated by the effects of mordern day capitalism, with its emphasis on wealth accumulation at the expense of the most critical human virtues-materialism has so much consumed the souls of our people that their very social fibre is lost to the said consumption!

 

This consumption leads to parents struggling to survive in the materialist world such that they spend most of their time thinking more about wealth accumulation.

 

The changing value systems is also frustrating the parents-children come to value their parents by the amounts of wealth they have amassed! In order to prove their worth and redeem their self-esteem, parents are forever thinking and engaging in wealth accumulation to the detriment of central human values the have characterised Africa and the world over years!

 

The morden world has also exposed our Children to the Television-where the heroes are those that are wealthy and it is amost a curse not to be rich.

 

In working to get these riches, the Parents do so using fair and foul means-while those that fails are a serious dissappointment to their Children!

 

Yes, the decline in our value systems is eating at the very heart of our society's moral fibre. 

[Nfuken Ntembam Tecla ep Neba]

In fact Bakoena, if nothing is done, then the next generation will have nothing to be talked about.

In the days passed, our parents used to spend the evenings with us, telling us stories about our ancestors, their youth, their difficulties, successes and other things that made the evenings worth remembering. They told us stories which gave us the courage to face challenges, to face the realities of life and pursue positive competition. Presently our parents spend their evenings out and return home late, children are never known to converse or tell stories with their parents, especially their fathers. More time is spent with other children, comparing toys, dresses and house hold facilities, watching different types of movies. At a very tender age they talk money like adults and they want to get it at all cost. If nothing is done, the next generation of parents may not even be returning home. The family has a role to play here, because this negative comparism is what leads to the search for money from sources beyond our means.

The greatest drama of humanity is family drama. There are acted on different topics based on the achievements, failures, problems, activities and temperaments of the family as a whole and of the individuals that make up that family. Activities have to be directed towards this group for proper mind development of our children.

[Bakoena Chele]

In our societies, corruption is so rife that our children have come to see it as the norm as against the exception.

Our Children grow up seeing those who amass unimaginable wealth in their life times and those that live in destitute poverty for their entire life times. As they grow up, these Children come to learn that those living in 'the land of plenty' are those who have accepted corruption as a norm and eandevoured to outdo their predecesors. They also come to learn that remain poor are those that have not read the signs of their time or as it is said, have not played their cards well! In growing up the see the benfits of growing rich through corrupt means and those that dies poor as a result of trying to live by their honest labour! The stench of the poverty, in the latter, becomes so strong that our Children grow up with deep disgust of poverty and the poor-the rich become their role models. These is where they make choices-whether to live their future lives in the plentiful world of the corrupt rich or in the world of the 'cursed' poor. Their little imaginations give them that they would rather know how 'to play their cards well' and live in affluence than to suffer the curse of the poor. It is at these early stages that the moral fibre of the young minds of our Children decays. As a result of that decay, they grow up believing in 'get rich quick money schemes' and become trapped in the evil of corrupt thoughts-at that very tender age!

 

To counter the effects of the fallacy of the happy rich versus the unhappy poor we need as Society to inculcate in our children the true meaning of happiness, as against the superficial happiness resulting from corrupt practices.

 

It is only when we have effectively put in place these counter measures that we may stand a chance of bringing up our Children in a manner that is free from corrupt thoughts.

 

But we need to acknowledge that these counter measures are like fighting with the devil himself-so strong are the influences of leading corrupt lives on our Children that we sometimes loose hope.

 

But no matter how difficult and ardous it is, we need to re-double our efforts in order to rid the coming generations of the cancer of corruption in the minds of our Children!