By Bruno Ugochukwu 07038310186
t is worrisome and shameful that our contemporary youth are lazy. They don’t work in order to earn a living. If you interview them to enquire about their reasons they will give you countless excuses ranging from inability of the government to provide employment to its younger ones, inability of the government to retire some of the top directors in government parastals ad son on ironically, without knowing that Abraham Lincoln one time American president said “Think of what you can do for your country and not what your country can do for you.
Labour originated far years back, labour is as old as man on earth even from the biblical story of Adam and Eve when the disobeyed God, God charged man to till the soil in order to feed himself.
It is because of the consequences of laziness and idleness, that leads to economic degradation I delve into commenting the lapses of our youth, so that things will put in order for national development of our country.
I will first of all, like to educate and enlighten the reading public on the meaning of dignity, labour before joining them together for proper understanding of this write-up.
Dignity means honour and respect attached to something, labour on the other hand means human effort in producing something. Labour can be in the form of; skilled, unskilled and semi skilled.
Joining, the two words together, Dignity of labour means the honour and respect that attached to a work that human being is doing in order to a living for instance A medical Doctor requires the services of a lawyer vice versa.
Now I want to draw a scriptural reference from 2Thess 3:6-15, where St Paul was highly disappointed with many of the Thessalonians (youth) that refused to work giving countless excuses that the second coming of our lord Jesus Christ is at hand (Parousia), now St Paul in his letter to the Christians reminded them of when they were on missionary Journey with them that they work day and night to feed themselves so that they wouldn’t be a burden to the Christians, using the opportunity in the piece to urge them to embrace the doctrine of dignity of labour and shun idleness, indolence and laziness that doesn’t encourage national development he even went further to make it as a rule not to associate with a youth or any brethren that refused to acknowledge the doctrine of dignity of labour so as to make him/her to ashamed of himself.
A am using Nigeria as a case study in this write-up, where they youths are been referred as the leaders of tomorrow since the inception of Nigeria, that a youth in Nigeria will gain Admission to study in a higher institution and upon graduation and after observing his mandatory N.Y.S.C he will stay at home roaming about without a work. Though we the youth should not look at the government but we have to put hands on desk, that by been an entrepreneur for those of us reading this piece, entrepreneur is a factor of production that combines land, labour, capital in order to establish his or her business to earn a living. An entrepreneur bears the risk and he or she make his own decision;
Nigerian youths should learn a skill why they were in the high institution in order to promote the economic development of our country and also to reduce the high rate of poverty. The skills are numerous but the ones I can mention are: sewing, panting, farming, shoe making, cake designing and fish farming etc. I want to use this medium to thank some non-governmental Organization (NGO) that was establish with the aim of encouraging skills acquisition in order to reduce poverty among our youths. The youths should understand that people that are rich and famous in the economic sector like Dangote, didn’t wait for the government to optimize their potentials so they should emulate them in order to shun laziness. The youths ought to know that when they work and pray they please God because one Latin adage says “Laborare est orare” meaning to work is to pray. In every work you do there is dignity attached to it, youths must work to improve themselves and their environment, the youths becomes co-creators with God when we work like producing goods for consumption.
My advice to my fellow youths is to shun idleness that leads to soicla vices which brings up human destruction, honestly speaking “think of what you can do for your country and not what your can do for you.
BY BRUNO UGOCHUKWU
Is a social commentator, writes from Ikeduru L.G.A Imo State
