By 

Uwem Umana

In the historical perspective of the world, we can see the generational flow that can be demarcated based on certain indices of either age range, events, geographical flows, economic flows, political flows and otherwise.

This brings about an historical gradation. This gradation is not sharp, rather it is gradual and does not just extinct sharply but decreases in activities and popularity while paving way gradually to the dynamically emerging views.

Perhaps, Nigeria is the only country that does not want to witness this generational shift, perhaps it is the only country that does not want to pave way for emerging values and ideologies that will catapult the nation into the realms of modernity, with the fundamentals of ancestral values still intact.

But I know that Nigeria may have been slower in being caught up with this bug of modifications but certainly, must be caught up with it someday. In a situation, where the elders of the land assume a megalomaniac status, try to offset the natural laws of diminishing returns and try to have a stronghold on the reins of power as if their whole existence is tied to that.

Old wines, they are in old bottles, trying to impersonate themselves into the new bottles, forgetting that it can only cause a tragedy of this nature that we are experiencing already. Any society that has established its fulcrum, what it does next, is to build upon it and this is a function of continuum.

Different and new challenges confront the society daily and different and newer approaches must be utilised in solving these problems. Attacking these problems with the old, obsolete and non-resultant methods is very appalling. The older generation having failed, no doubt, should admit that they are a total failure. They should come to terms with the fact that the panacea to the madness of this nation does not lie in their immediate grasp and clasp. They should not chase shadows anymore.

Shadows can never be caught. All the years already gone by is enough wastage and there is no need accumulating more years of wastage by their unending device of chasing the illusive shadow. They should rather play the more honourable role of going back to the backbench and relax to enjoy all what they accumulated and watch the new dancers come into stage. As a matter of fact, they should aid and encourage the young, vibrant dancers to come and display their reservoir of energy – mental, physical and spiritual.

The enormity of the challenges are so vast that old weak hands cannot grab them effectively and contain them.

In a society like ours, where we have an abundance of elders, they should henceforth begin to systematically handover all the vital notes and intelligence to the young ones, who have been warming up all the while.

In a relay match, it is the most dynamic and vibrant that gives a fantastic finishing because of the abundance of skills, stamina and ability to withstand the rigours of the last lap. What has made ours a tragedy is that the earlier lapses has been extremely painful, deliberately slow and ruinous in nature, so that the finishing is a near impossibility. There is nothing that cannot be corrected. Every defect can be corrected though not to its exact original but either better or lesser. The new wine has been brewed. They are ready to be poured out but never into the old bottle. The old bottle will definitely burst as it lacks the required strength to contain the new wine.

The old wine is stale and cold. The temperature is obviously cold and it lacks the effervescence to stimulate the environment. One sure thing that I appreciate about the Japanese leaders and which we can borrow a leaf from is their ability to openly accept and admit failure and stepping down to give room to some other person to take over.

In the least developed countries (Nigeria inclusive) we have the problem of sit-tight rulers who would want to die right in the seat of power with their huge failures of philosophies (if at all they had any) and implementations, and instead of exhibiting and exuding humility entrenched in all great rulers, by admitting failure and seeking for ways of redress, they keep living in an illusioned world of pride and nonsensical arrogance of failing.

The times have changed. The world has witnessed consecutively agricultural revolution, industrial revolution and now information technology revolution and we have missed out in all. The economy is in shambles. People cannot afford the basic necessities of life anymore, elites get more elitist and the downtrodden get more trampled upon. This is a clear idea that all their ideologies have failed.

Let them bow out honourably back to the archives, so that we can be referring to them from time to time. The new wines are ready to be bottled and it is only the new bottle that can contain the new wine.

The new nation should be ready to contain the new ideas that will propel the nation forward. As long as the nation remains old with the old wine, it will remain stale, cold and stagnant. The new wine is bubbling, and what they want is the new bottle to be emptied in.

Let all of them get back to the consulting rooms and watch the nation be turned around. The wave of this change is blowing from the east to west to the even the core conservative north.

We are all tired of the stagnancy of the land and retrogression. Let them all relinquish and leave the stage for the youth to come and take the nation out of this extremely embarrassing albatross that has constituted a frustrating menace to all.