It is no longer news that Bonny as a community is burdened by the saddening outcomes of the failure of leadership. This leadership crisis is unanimously agreed to be coming from all fronts – traditional, religious, and political. The myriad, hydra-headed problems facing the area is the harvest for this failure.

 

However, the issue now is not what the problems are as most of us are abreast with them in the various hues they show themselves. What is important now is the way forward and more importantly the role the youths can play to reshape the destiny of this great kingdom.

 

So far diverse fora have been thriving especially online where ideas are being harvested on what’s the way forward for our community. These include the Facebook pages such as Bonny Youth Federation, BYF360, Bonny Vanguard, Bonny for Credible Candidates, Rivers Ijaws, and several others. There are also Yahoo groups such as Bonny Graduates Forum, Bonny Light House, amongst others. Those who have participated in discussions on these fora attest to the dynamism, freshness and pungency of ideas therein cross-pollinated. Problem is to what extent have actions matched the words said so far?

 

But for starters, what forms the items articulated by consensus on these discussion forums as the critical need profile of the Kingdom, politically, socially, economically, educationally, health-wise, and other areas? What and what does Bonny need? For the youths, for the women, for the old and aged, for the traditional institution, for the non-indigenes residing amongst us, what do we need?

 

Interrogating this need assessment profile would throw up several issues. But it behoves the youths themselves to take up the gauntlet and direct the discourse in the direction of articulating the general and specific needs of the community. Every concept is valuable as at now. Like I posited sometime ago, every Bonny man and woman wherever we find ourselves should begin the revolution of directing value and positive impact homewards.

 

Those in the public and private sector, development and social activists, public opinion leaders, the traditional institution, religious leaders, everyone has a role to play in saturating the discourse with the Bonny Project, to borrow the political jargon of the incumbent Chairman of the local government area. But the greater responsibility rests on the shoulders of the youths, reason being that it is their time.

 

Need I say, that the precious time squandered online posting pictures of their beauty by our young ladies and that by our young men abusing each other can be channelled into conceptualising how to turn around the fortunes of our community.

 

From my own perspective, there’s need to dust up the Bonny Masterplan, the Joint Industries Committee blueprint, and any other extant document articulating the need assessment profile of Bonny Kingdom. These would provide the needed raw materials for drawing up a marshal plan for developing the area. Without prejudice to whatever those documents contain I need to say it here that top on the agenda would be the following:

 

Opening up Bonny to the rest of the world by getting the Bonny-Bodo Road completed. Can someone volunteer to put up Google Maps and Google Earth pictures and on the spot assessment pictures of the state of the road on a regular basis? This would counter any stupid lies our politicians would bandy about.

 

We, the youths need a thriving resource centre. The Bonny Library can serve this purpose if transformed and fitted with Internet resources. Out of context, right? But we need to research. That’s how knowledge comes and flows.

 

A database of our resources won’t be a bad idea, or would it? We don’t know who is where, doing what or achieving what. We don’t have a formal platform for warehousing our resources be they human or otherwise. V-Connect, LinkedIn, and others like them is what I am looking at. If I need someone in a particular field or occupation I can call up that information quickly via such a database. The Bonny Integrated Recruitment Centre would also find such a database very handy in the pursuit of its objectives.

 

The youths need a think tank of sound intellectuals to interrogate any and every policy, programme or project coming our way whether from the public or private sector and determine their suitability or otherwise to the interest or needs of the community. This would eliminate to the barest minimum situations where politicians or companies come with their hogwash to deceive us.

 

A trust fund to drive certain projects would do us a world of good. Scholarships, grants and community projects can be driven through such fund. This trust fund when established can warehouse all accruals from royalties, tenement rate, intervention funds, donations, etc from wherever coming to the kingdom. To inure it from pilfering, an e-accounting system could be integrated into its management which can be accessed by anyone anytime.

 

The Bonny Youth Federation (BYF), Bonny Graduates Forum (BGF), and other youth bodies needs to be harmonised and strengthened to deliver more on their goals.

 

The advocacy drive for driving development homewards should also begin to bite. This would be profoundly effective where we eschew acrimony and other self-defeatist tendencies. I grapple with a lot of drivel in my interactions with our brethren. Misunderstandings of yesteryears are made to look like they are happening live when ordinarily they should have found comfort in the waste bins of history.

 

Last but not the least, every Bonny Youth should focus on building capacity, personal development and economic self-sufficiency to reduce the problem of dependency on politicians who tie their support to our blind loyalty. For the fact that they feed us they expect us to take their trash and swallow it hook line and sinker. Ridiculous as it sounds that’s reality for many of our youths.

 

This does not in any way sum up the imperatives for our youths. They are just the ruminations of my restless mind. You need to add yours so we can hit the ground running. Obviously we are behind schedule as to where our beloved homeland should be in terms of social, economic and other aspects of development. Let the discourse continue.