Talent Development In An Underdeveloped Society: The Frustrations of a Creative Youth in Nigeria

A Paper delivered by Chidozie Chukwubuike on the occasion of Youth Creativity Exhibition and Establishment of Creativity Enhancement Fund at the Imo State Library Auditorium.
Date: Thursday, 13 November, 2008

Introduction
The thought that gave birth to this topic seems to thrive on opposites. First, we see ‘Development in Underdeveloped Society’. Afterwards, we see ‘frustrations of a creative youth’. On the surface, the thought of creativity and frustration, together, strikes one as absurd. However, in preparing this paper, I decided to contextualize it. Beginning with this introductory phase, I went ahead to reconcile the dictionary definitions of the terms that appear in the topic with their practical usage in real life situations in order to arrive at working definitions. Read more

Retardation of Government Business: Stagnating Schemes of Service and Administrative Proceedure in Action

The naissance of the Government White Paper on the Report of a 17 member Presidential Committee on the Consolidation of Emoluments in the Public Service dated December 2006 was the result of a rigorous, time –consuming efforts of seven Technical Sub-Committees including that of Recruitment Framework.

The White Paper as directed by His Excellency, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was to prepare detailed programme of implementation of the accepted parts of the report so as to ensure that substantial implementation begins in 2007 along with substantial implementation of the Publics Service Reforms and Right Sizing. Read more

The Suicide Bombers of Nigeria

These are sad times; our society is sitting on gunpowder. We are all working surreptitiously and determinedly towards a devastating implosion, one that shall leave us totally valueless. We are the conscious architects of our own doom. We are the experts planting this time bomb that shall be our undoing.

How do I mean valueless? Political scientists have made us to understand that the world is a theatre of power play. It is a continuous drama, where survival of the fittest is the over-riding motif. In this drama, a player is only relevant so long as it still wields influence or has some thing to offer. Every player strives to outwit the other. The smart among the lot feed fat on the naivety or folly of the less visionary. Most of us born after the Nigeria-Biafra war grew to find the globe divided into first and third worlds. Read more

Nigeria at 48: Looking Back, Going Forward

October 1, the anniversary of Nigeria’s existence as an independent nation slipped by a few days ago. Aside from the usual tepid national broadcast by the President, little else stood the day out as special. Of course, listless squads of marchers went through the routine in various local government headquarters and state capitals. There were public displays, sumptuous banquets in various government houses and frolickers had memorable times at popular beaches, recreation parks, eateries and nightclubs. The usual prayers were held in various mosques and churches. Bemused viewers watched the special service held at the National Ecumenical Centre Abuja on NTA network: the richly attired and dazzling worshipers and the contented manner Mrs Patience Jonathan reclined patiently on the sofa provided for her and the Vice President! Read more

Biogas- for a sustainable society!

The saying that traveling is part of education cannot be less true in all ramifications. I say so because my recent visit and tours of Sweden as a part of the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) sponsored Ecological Sanitation Resource class 2008.

I was among fifteen other top sustainable development professionals invited to Stockholm to undergo three weeks Ecological Sanitation Resource training. As part of the training we had schedules of visits to very interesting places in Stockholm such as the Natur Centrum, the Skansen Centre, as well as the Skarpnack and Listudden neighborhoods. What I saw in these sites made me ‘dumb’. They were great places to visit by anyone who is really interested in the preservation of nature/ecology.

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Rethinking the Clean-up Exercise in Nigeria

The practice of designating one day in a month as a general clean – up day has assumed the status of a culture in this country. It is the day we try to do all the cleaning we failed to do in the past one month. On such a day all the rubbish that was dumped inside the drains are scooped out to make room for the ones we plan to deposit there right after the clean-up exercise. All the obscure corners of markets and open places that have served as dump sites are emptied out. On such clean-up days, the roads and streets are blocked with refuse from all nooks and crannies of the city. The original concept is that pay-loaders and refuse trucks will be handy to cart away the refuse as they are being generated. What is on ground however, owing to the endemic corruption in the system is that adequate arrangement for the carting away of refuse is not made before announcing a clean-up day. The result is that the state of the city on clean-up days and many days and even weeks after is indeed a sorry sight.

The problem of rapid generation of refuse is one of the evils of urbanization. The rural communities manage their refuse much better than the urban areas. The reason is simply that the population in such places grows naturally, mainly through birth. They can afford to manage refuse in the same way their forebears managed theirs because the population is stable. Urbanization is characterized by the massive influx of people into an area that is already saturated with inhabitants. This astronomical and abnormal increase in the number of people living in a place affects every aspect of life. Advanced nations of the world are so called because they factor these evils of urbanization into their plans for their cities. They plan these cities to make them truly habitable. Read more

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