The salvation of Nigeria lies in the hands of youths – Charly Boy

Charles Oputa, popularly known as Charly Boy, in this interview with OBIRE ONAKEMU, says he is doing all he can do to make sure that the youth are properly focused, describing them as kings of the new millennium. He also speaks on the leadership of the country, accusing politicians of thinking of how to line their pockets instead of addressing the challenges bedeviling the country.

What is your general assessment of governance in the country and your state, lmo, in particular as of today?
Everything in Nigeria has finally become a joke. When you have the kind of references called politicians who have their ways of doing things, it’s like they are very clannish because they don’t understand what leadership is about. The average Nigerian politician is interested in the next election; he is not interested in improving or bettering the environment or the future generation.

So, I have no respect for them; I’m only sad because the youth have been traumatised in a very horrible way. Most of them never see any future in the contraption that we call Nigeria. And most of them feel that nothing will ever get better, which in my own view, is just a fallacy because the hunger, the poverty, the frustration, the hopelessness that have led all of them to believe or most of them rather to believe that there is no hope are man made. These are the people that I am worried about!

But I still keep telling them that nothing is ever given to you. Look at me; look at my story! I had to challenge my father; I have to challenge the Nigerian society. I didn’t have it easy even though I come from a very good pedigree and heritage but notwithstanding I was that priest in the story who was born in a golden bed and decided that he would venture into the bush just to see how his life would become and he went to the bush and he never came back. In my own case, the street became me and that is why I’m the Area Fada.

So, when you ask me about Nigerian politicians, I have no regard for most of them. I don’t think they mean well for the people and leadership is about the people and not about yourself. But I’m doing all I can do to make sure that the youth are focused properly. They should understand that they have the numbers; they should understand that they are King’s of the new millennium. They should understand that regardless of how much money that these people must have amassed, of course, by stealing their future, they still have the power to turn things around.

With huge foreign loan commitments by the Federal Government right from the time of ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, do you see the possibility of implementing this year’s budget to a reasonable extent with the way things are now in Nigeria?
The budget is for them; it’s for them to share. I don’t see any kind of development when you have a high-alert of insecurity. Where is the business going to come from? The money that they have borrowed, nobody tells anybody what they are doing. And that is where I hold young people responsible. There should be some kind of accountability. But the people who are supposed to be leading us are rulers; they are not really leading. As I’ve said over and over again, they don’t care for the people that they lead; they do anyhow.

So, even if they like, they can borrow all the money in the world; the common man would not feel the impact of that money because they have gotten the money; they have divided it; they have chopped it; they have squandered it and that is what is so painful because the future of the next generation have just been mortgaged. They have stolen it. That is why Nigerian youths need to know what they are doing. All my hope is on them. All my struggles for the past 45 years are about them. And I still say that as dark as it may be looking, the salvation of this country still lies in the hands of these exceptional people. And who are these people? They are the young people; they are the youths.

Let me tell you! I have been privileged to meet outstanding Nigerian youths whom I have learned so much from. So, please, explain to me when a young person leaves the shores of this country and starts to blossom because he or she is in an environment where he or she can spread his or her wings. So, we can all appreciate that. What is happening to us? It’s bad leadership! But then I blame the young people because what you get is what you deserve. For some of us wey no fit travel, for me I not fit go anywhere. We are all going to die here. I’m not running anywhere. Nobody is going to make me run away from Nigeria.

So, those of us who cannot afford to be anywhere else, whether by age or whatever, should ensure that we come together and be sure that there is change or else we never begin to suffer. That is how I am seeing it!

Do you think politics or economic models can fix the country?
What can fix this country is sincerity of purpose, which the people I’m seeing now don’t even have. They don’t even have the knowhow. To them, governance is all about going there to make money. They have nothing to do with how to fix things. We need scientific ways to do things so that people can be relieved of this kind of hardship. It has never been so bad like this in Nigeria.

So, all those ones wey you dey talk na grammar. These people are there for their pockets, their families and that is all they are concerned with. I have said it times without number that I can’t trust APC neither can I trust PDP. I can’t trust anybody who has been in government before because most of them have been polluted.

Do you support the call for a total overhaul of the present structure of governance in the country?
Of course, of course! I wish I have a magic wand that can make all these old people disappear – even myself wey dey talk to you. There are young people who are more energetic; who are intellectually equipped and who really want to serve. I don’t believe that everything is bad and when I talk of young people coming together, it is not every youth in Nigeria that would come together. The people who are responsible for our predicament, they are just an insignificant fraction of our population.

So, the young people who would rescue this country are just very few people who are determined. Even if it is their blood, they would spill them so that Nigeria will be better. I haven’t for one minute felt that there is nobody like that or you can’t find people like that. I still believe in the goodness of humanity; I still believe that there are a few people who are sensitive to what is on ground.

My job as an Area Fada is to hopefully identify a few of them and see how we can bring them together because they have the energy; they have the wherewithal to retrieve their stolen future.

Do you entertain any fears over Nigeria’s unity and existence as a corporate entity even as insecurity continues to gain momentum?
Some people believe that you can use violence to achieve whatever. And what can violence achieve if it is not on the negative side? This contraption called Nigeria cannot exist because at a time this house would fall. We can’t go on like this. We can’t live in unity when you have so much injustice all over the place and we can’t have unity when might is right. And we can’t also have unity when you are only thinking of yourself and not everyone else. Violence begets more violence!

When people like us were 50, everybody strived to be good because there was a big reward for being good. Goodness was promoted. Now, look around your environment; what is being promoted? Badness, negativity, doing anyhow by any means necessary. I can’t imagine that at this time in our lives, young people are talking about rituals. Who taught them if not the elders? How did they get all those negative vices into their heads if only they are not copying their leaders, their elders and whoever they are copying from?

So, we need to go back to the values that tie us together and it must first start from the family. Look at the predicaments of young people. I am not making an excuse for them because some of them, their Mumu don cast – now follow come. Okay! But when the government has ignored you, the community has ignored you, parents are no longer in duty as they used to because they are also fighting for survival; when it seems that nobody cares for you, then how do you think that child is going to come out? These are some of the problems that we are dealing with today.

What advice do you have for Nigerian politicians?
No advice! The people you are giving advice, are they willing to take it? (Laughs) Do they even listen to us? Are they listening to the masses? Are they experiencing what we are going through? So, if this is just for rhetoric purposes, make ebe say me I don talk something, I can’t be talking to a deaf and dumb person. Not be the one wey we they talk na im them they talk. They are talking about how to line their pockets more.

So, any advice that I have to give is to young people for them not to be discouraged; for them to know that nothing will ever be given to them! So, I have no time for bullshit. I beg!