Dr. Nick Ngwanyam makes an anatomy of the Youths’ Problems in Cameroon, President Biya’s address to the Youths, and challenges Adults to Sit up and chart a better way for the Youths.

Dr. Nick Ngwanyam

This interview is Courtesy of CRTV’s 60minutes program with Mr. Wain Paul Ngam

 

Today we will be focusing on young people, the future leaders of Cameroon who on February 11, 2015 commemorated the 49^th edition of the National Youth Day. One Wiseman has said that the danger that confronts the younger generation is the example set by the older generation. Are we even conscious of the fact that we need to set examples for the younger generation, and what kind of examples? That is one of the issues Dr. Nick Ngwanyam would be addressing in today’s interview.

 

 

When I keep reminding myself that I am a youth, it gives me the energy to work. I am getting on to 59 and if I am still a youth that is fine.

 

Talk to me about your days as a young person. You are still a youth as you have said, but there was a time when you were an active young person.

 

In fact when I say I am a youth, it is just for the sake of joking. When you are beyond 40, you are no longer a youth. I think it is understood that you should go to school and get all your capacities put in place so that by the time you are 24, 25, you start working. So we expect the youth to start working from the time they are 24, 25. They should start making money, they should start putting in place their companies, businesses and investments so that by the time they are forty, they should see clearly what they were doing. They would have been married with two or three kids and have a sense of direction so that when they are fifty, they should actually be retiring from active work.

 

When you say retire, it does not mean you go to the village, that is you change that kind of activity which must have been strenuous; then you redefine something else and you start working at a different pace when you are fifty. You probably go to school and learn different skills and you start doing something in a more relaxed way. So many people get at fifty when they are not yet married because of the lost opportunity.

 

At what age would you like a young person to start behaving like an old person?

 

I do not know what you mean by an old person; behaving like an old person. I would imagine you want to say at what age should a youth start being responsible. You are assuming that old age comes with wisdom and responsibility and in Cameroon, you would find out that there are some people who are very young and very responsible and yet there are some people who are very old and very irresponsible. So old age in Cameroon does not equate to wisdom and that is a huge problem because a lot of young people have been looking up to people who are older hoping that they have wisdom. These are people who do not have wisdom and this is the reason why our youths are disturbed and lost.

 

Disturbed and lost because of you; yesterday’s youth do not want to probably bring them up. You want to eat the gizzards forever.

 

The problem here is that we do not know how to hand over the baton. Life is a relay and the way God made us, we are made in batches and we sit on this conveyor belt that goes from one station to the other.

 

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