A YOUNG MAN’S CRY
One of the good things about being young is being allowed to hope. To look forward to ageing gracefully and being allowed to dream. To dream and to realize your dreams. To fantasize about being great and being somebody. To reach out to the hopes of being like the Adenuga’s of this society and the Dangote’s of this life. Not everyone is allowed to dream anymore. Today, in the bus I realized this as I saw the bus conductor engage in an act so selfless and so simple, it made me sit and think. The beauty of life is the opportunity to pick out the path that we wish to journey. In my life, I have been allowed to choose. In so many young Nigerian’s lives, the same is not so. Consider the life of a conductor, yes we all need conductors. It is a profession that is well appreciated, not so?
Do many of us realize that in the society we live in today it is mostly a period of hardship and frustration that lead people to such odd jobs as bus conducting? Does it pain you to see a young boy who normally should be in school hanging precariously from a bus all in the name of routing for passengers? A young boy who was told that there was no need for more education because his family could not afford it. A young boy who decides that if education is so expensive then maybe it was not worth it. The irony that life introduces is that there is no one to help the boy out because everyone needs a conductor. The conductor of my bus today helped a secondary school boy who was stranded after missing the school bus. The boy did not pay the fare and the conductor did not inform his boss the bus driver. He spoke to the boy calmly and explained that next time he should try to come out early enough for the bus. My heart nearly broke as my spirit cried out. What about you? Who will educate you? Who teaches the mechanic to do his sums? Who encourages the little kids that hawk on the street to learn to add? Why are they out on the street instead of in schools where they belong? What can be done? Who ever thinks of these things? Am I the only one who thinks along these lines? Who are those who could affect the lives of these young ones? Why not take a stand and effect change in their lives?
How long would we put a blind eye to the pain of the less privileged? We all assume when we enter a bus that a bus needs a conductor, that the child hawking pure water was put there because of thirsty people in the traffic, the young man chasing down your car with gala or recharge cards for your mobile phone is a distributor making his own money. There were days in this country without the street hawkers. Is it not because the situation of the economy is harder that we have a case of hawking on the streets? It is simple, now you would treat bus conductors with a little more courtesy.
Not pity, which is not what they need. Just respect for the job that they do. The hard working mechanic slaving his energy under your car as engine oil drips on him. You would pay him on time, right? There are some who truly picked the profession that they are involved in at the moment. However, there are the precious select few who really would have loved to get an education but as we say in this country “na condition make crayfish bend”. These few who do not have a choice and do not have a way out. They are the ones with the frustrated and unrealized dreams. The ones with the dashed hopes. The young people with the unfulfilled desires. How do we help? A question I have often asked myself and one I think every other person who has been young and has been in a position to dream and has been allowed to achieve that dream. Take a moment while basking in your success to consider the young student turned conductor because of lack of money. The young girl turned prostitute because her father died and cannot continue to pay her fees. The young children on the street who run after cars begging people to buy what they have for sale. The mad rush to keep living in a world that gives no options to the next person. The confusion in their world when they see children their ages tucked safely in cars on their way to school. That is the day they realize that they also have a right to schooling. They have a right to dream. They have a reason to look forward to aging gracefully and being fulfilled. So continue to dream even if you sell recharge cards or sew for a living, there would be a brighter day. There is a better way out there and one day it would come to you. Unfulfilled dreams can be a burden and an ache in the soul. There is no way to relieve the pain of now or an unforeseen tomorrow. One can only wait and wonder and ponder.