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Mahamed Boakai: 15/07/2013 – One does not have to be a rocket scientist to predict greater challenges for the future of Liberia. It is yet fluid to be definitive about causes but there is a glaring tread: the young people of Liberia are facing acute innovation-deficit.

The civil war in this country was fueled by the youth, organized out of ignorance by political greed and fired by a hunger for material gains. In seeking more open societies and a government that is more responsive to economic realities, politicians threw a bit called “political change for advancement and exposure”. The youth, by themselves, unmasked a deep-seated sense of denial of social inclusion.

The Liberian civil crisis was the result of long absence of corporate governance including corruption, which continues to hinder the delivery of basic social services. The failure to provide basic social services has always had adverse consequences on the young people of our country. Our schools are not properly equipped and our school system is one of substandard. This has direct co-relations to the low intelligent quotients of our youth; and therefore the lack of innovative advancement opportunities.

The youth sees no opportunities for themselves in our common patrimony and do not feel they have control over their lives or a stake Liberia’s future. This pessimism has led to disengagement and the potential for future state-collapse.

Liberia risk losing a generation to apathy. The direct result of such a scenario is what we have begun to witness in various streets and communities across Liberia. The vast majority of young men throughout this country have despised any form of schoolings in favor of pen-pen riding (operating of commercial motorcycles) because these young me find economic solace over those bikes though risking lives in various traffic jams. This group of youth forms part of a lager population that have found European soccer commentary more valuable than any meaningful topic for discussion.

To address this nemesis (the decline of young and promising minds) in our society, policy architects must better understand the aspirations of our young citizens. The interest in pen-pen riding is clear indication that people are primarily concerned with ‘bread-and-butter’ economy (#1 on Maslow’s hierarchical needs). Sadly, our young minds are far too less equipped to see this as a mere stepping stone to pre-eminence and so get pass satisfying those basic needs. Hence: until and alternative stepping-stone is created or minds advanced our young people will continue to meander and wallow in ignorance and the poverty circle.

You will cry when you listen to discussions at various gathering centers around Liberia – the Hatae shops, the UL Palava Huts, etc. Intellectual exercises are baseless, disjointed and void of logic. Information exchanges are inadequate and robbed of accuracies. Except for European soccer discussion in which even a school-going kid who cannot articulate his/her class lectures is able to tell you about every soccer team and detailed backgrounds of their individual players and family members. The young people are not alone on this one – look at our various video clubs. Many Liberians cannot analyze any topic beyond European soccer (football).

Gone are the days when young people took interest in sitting under the tutelage of brains like Dr. Togbah Nah-Tipoteh, Dr. Amos Sawyer, Dr. H. Boima Fahnbulleh, Mr. G. Baccus Matthews, etc. It is about time such exemplary state building endeavors resumed. There is nothing like mentorship for upcoming leaders of society. We still have people with potential; that charisma and energy is almost in every quarter of our society. We see this going on in other countries; our senior brothers and sisters should not abandon us. These informal lectures are good to revise a cancerous trend.

If nothing is done to avert this lack of innovations amongst the youth, they will grow restless and robbed of their dignity by dependency syndrome. Without socio-economic and political stake in the future of Liberia, they can lose their sense of belonging. The spillover effect of this is the hostilities towards the few educated elites; and the leadership of the country.

It has been commonplace for under achievers to exploit situations against our educated elites and all school going people in general. We have heard past and present political leaders with feeble intellectual clouts to play on the sentiments of the masses with the infamous phrase: ‘educated people are the problem in Liberia’. By the way, this is the only country I have heard such a statement. But this goes to prove the adage that “where there is bad leader there are bad people, for people elect their kind”.

Until a genuine change of minds through sustained intellectual engagements, we will continue to see the kind of leaders have. And this may only get worse. I have been thinking of late about how to fix Liberia amidst competing priorities. I believe that engaging decay with prospects is the real task for the Government of Liberia.

Mahamed Boakai is an independent governance consultant. He can be reached at bmaskia@yahoo.com.