Owhe is having a chat about the
forthcoming elections with his 18 year old
sister who’s in her final year in the
university, and at some point, he asks for
her opinion
on Vice-president, Namadi
Sambo.
But the teenager doesn’t even know who
in the world Namadi Sambo is.
She retorted: “Who is Namadi Sambo?”
It’s incredible that a Nigerian who will
soon be a graduate doesn’t know who the
vice president of her country is — and she
lives in the country.
But of course it shows how ignorant a lot
of young people are about happenings in
the world around them today.
Funmi, a middle aged woman shared her
view on the availability of news in the past
as opposed to what’s obtainable in
present day.
She said: “In those days when I was
growing up in the village, there were no
TVs or newspapers around. Of course
there were no computers. They used to
bring the day’s newspaper from the city
hundreds of kilometres away because the
circulation didn’t extend to our village. So
only a few people even got to read the
papers. Ordinary young people like me
simply had no access to the news.”
Well that was 35 years ago. Today, young
people literally have the news at their
fingertips. You don’t have to hunt for a
newspaper or go to the home of rich
neighbours down the road to watch the
news on TV.
There are millions of news stories on the
smartphone and tablet in their hands. So
why are young people ignoring the news?
Why aren’t they following the news even
though it’s now a million times easier than
ever?
One reason is that it’s simply not
interesting to them. They find it boring.
They don’t care to read about politics,
disasters and all those serious stuff in the
news. Most youths just want to read
something fun and entertaining.
Another factor is that a lot of youths
simply don’t have anyone their age who
reads papers online or in print or watches
the evening news.
Seriously, who watches the evening news?
Many youths think that’s old fashioned,
something elders do, something out of
place for young people. They’d rather
watch a movie or read the latest status
update of friends on social media.
Besides, that’s simply not how this
generation of young people was raised.
Young people weren’t raised to sit in front
of the TV and watch the evening news.
Few parents encouraged their kids to read
the papers when they were growing up
and were still under their roof.
Few parents check up on their kids when
they buy them a Blackberry to see if
they’re using it to inform themselves and
not just using it for social stuff. So in a
way, it’s kind of a parenting failure.
It is important, however, to state that the
prevalent apathy of young people to
reading, is not limited to news stories
alone.
Young people generally don’t read
anything these days. That’s one reason
books don’t sell. The only books that most
young people read are textbooks and
other ones that they have to read for their
studies — and the intent is often not to
learn anything, but to score a good grade
or to fulfill a lecturer’s demands.
So what happens when youths don’t keep
up with the news?
It’s simple. They get poorly informed and
they miss out on important stuff
happening in the world around them. For
example, who would think that in this age
where the news is literally everywhere, a
university student wouldn’t know who the
vice president of her country is?
So just imagine you’re a young
undergraduate and your boyfriend invites
you to meet his parents, and while you’re
there, his father starts talking about
Namadi Sambo, and then asks you a
question about the man, but you don’t
even know the man called Namadi
Sambo.
Will your boyfriend and his parents think
highly of you?
But then, just to be fair to Owhe’s sister,
Namadi Sambo, is without an iota of
exaggeration, a forgettable person.
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