Can We Be Free Too?

Happy Independence day to the President of Nigeria, the Governor of Ogun State, successful business men and entrepreneurs of Ogun State, our talented artistes and to the eminent youths of Ogun State.

‘Mr President’, ‘Mr Governor’, ‘Mr Entrepreneur’, ‘Mr musician’, ‘Mr actor’, ‘Mr Politician’, as we celebrate Nigeria’s independence today , I have been asking myself several questions as regards freedom. And I realised that Freedom is a continual process. Some leaders of the past set Nigeria free from our colonial masters, earlier generations set subsequent generations free from the shackles of poverty, hardship, Illiteracy, Insecurity and I can say that the present elites of our nation were made from the freedom that was given to them by the past elites of Nigeria.

Most of you would probably have been nothing if the past leaders and elites of this nation did not ensure your freedom, and I can categorically state that you owe us freedom from several shackles too, in order that we can have a great future like you do or even a better future than yours.

But I have a big question for you today, Can we be free too? Can you assure us that you will set us free?

‘Mr President’, can you promise us that this ASUU strike will be the last in the history of Nigeria? Will your administration do something sensible to bring this strike to a permanent end?

‘Mr President’, can you please review NYSC in order to check the unnecessary loss of lives of we youths and wastage of government resources?

The money can be invested into the development of our Institutions.

‘Mr President’, can you please assure us that we can always get the Government’s attention whenever we want, without having to kidnap or pick up bombs like our brothers from the Niger Delta?

‘Mr President’, can you give hope to we hardworking and principled youths by frowning at the careless utterances and behaviours of scoundrels like Asari Dokubo?

‘Mr President’, you’ve never paid most of us bursaries, but you keep paying ‘Amnesty’ to criminals and even sent some of them outside Nigeria for education and skill acquisition. Can this stop please? Criminals shouldn’t have a place in the society sir.

Mr Governor, can you please prove to us that our education is still useful and necessary?

Mr Governor, can you please promise us that you will help protect the little we have by ensuring adequate security for us and our environment?

Mr Governor, can you please make our state owned university a model for all Universities in Africa? Yes you can do it sir, without astronomically increasing our school-fees.

Mr Governor, can you please upgrade all our public Primary and Secondary schools to the standards of their private counterparts? You see sir, life is hard enough for some of our parents that they can’t afford to send us to Private schools for that necessary quality education.

Sir, can you please improve the situation of these public schools to a point that even the elites will start sending their children there for quality education?

Mr Governor, can you assure us that we will grow into a future with good road networks all over Ogun State and will no longer lose lives to accidents arising from bad roads?

Mr Governor, a 31 year-old youth is currently a member  of your cabinet,  please sir, can you assure the rest of us that we can get there on merit, even at younger ages?

Mr Governor, Can you promise to always engage we the youths for developmental purposes, especially during this ASUU strike?

Mr Governor, we in our little capacity are out to honour the excellent youths of Ogun State, can you also put things in place to honour and encourage we youths?

Dear Businessmen, please can you promise us that there shall be jobs readily available for us after graduation on a basis of merit?

Dear successful business men (we have a huge number of you), can you please set up public scholarship schemes to help some of us to school?

Dear Businessmen, we look up to most of you as role models and mentors, please can you  make yourselves readily available to Inspire and guide us? Please can you get on Facebook and twitter and interact with us?

Dear lecturer please can you promise us that we will henceforth begin to pass your courses by merit? we all cannot afford to buy your irrelevant textbooks, we can’t all bribe you, we all can’t engage in immoral acts with you.

Dear musicians, Fela Kuti created a platform for you all to build on. If there was no Fela, there probably will be no you. Can you please lay a foundation for we upcoming ones too? We need you to make our success easier.

While we great youths of Ogun State await the Gateway Youth Awards in December, can we also promise ourselves to ‘Say No to Drugs’, ‘Say no to Drugs Abuse’, ‘Say No to Internet-fraud’, ‘Say No to Violence’, ‘Say No to Prostitution’, ‘Say No to Robbery’ and ‘Say no to all other vices’.

The future is ours, let us not jeopardise it.

Thank you and God bless.