Theodore Roszak coined the term counterculture in 1968 to explain
youthful opposition to older generation’s principles and approaches towards politics,
education, the arts and social relations. Counterculture would eventually enter
into world mainstream discourse as a term to describe similar oppositions to
elitist, high modernist ideals. It was deployed majorly during American cold
war era when liberal economies failed to salvage the post-world war decline,
and also during the 1960s devastations ignited by the Vietnam War. Indeed the
late 1960s saw increasing youthful opposition to the contested ideology of the old’s
technocracy not just in the United States but all over the world. The 1960s was
rocked by the American-Vietnam War, Civil Rights Protests, assassination of US
President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jnr, the launching of the
Cuban Missiles and many more. In Africa, it was marked by youthful agitations
to take control of Africa’s leadership from the colonialists. Then, most of
these old politicians were at their best and were in their 20s, 30s and 40s.
The term counterculture befits Nigeria at this moment. This is because Roszak proposed
counterculture as a response to pervasive enemy of youth idiosyncrasy.
Counterculture simply means the youth opposing the archaic, unrealizable,
expired, unworkable ideas of the old generation. And this is what plays out, needs
to play out, in Nigeria at the moment.
To be clear, this is not an attempt to stereotype against
the old generation. When I use ‘old generation’ I mean the same old politicians
who have been hanging around in Africa since independence. They have
orchestrated wars, exterminations, famines, genocides, ethnic cleansing,
corruption, kleptocracy, name them. I mean the Mugabes, the Zumas, the Biyas,
the Jamehs, the Omar Bongos, the Musevenis, the Dos Santos, the B…. The list is
endless. All their supporters also belong to this old generation. If you qualify
for youth category and you support them then you are an old generation. It
means your ideas are old and expired. Common guys, these are expired old folks
with expired brains. So they will continue to inject expired stuffs into your
veins. If the average age of the African
continent is the 20s it means that more than 70 percent of Africans were not
born when these bunch of leaders clung unto power.
Counterculture will deliver you. It delivered Ethiopia where
the young, dynamic, president has applied laxative to wash and set the engine
of the Ethiopian nation. An inventory of some other African states suggest that
the young generation performed better by washing and setting their nations. Nigeria desperately needs counterculture to
wash and set all the parts now. If you have once visited an Ogbonge herbalist you will understand
the meaning of washing and setting. All the debilitating parts of Nigerian parts
needs to be tumbled, dissected, rinsed with fuel or kerosene, or Ogbonge liquid,
and set back.
Oil and water can never mix. Old politicians and their
supporters are mutually exclusive with rational youth idiosyncrasy. Old,
expired, politicians are irreconcilable with vibrant, healthy youth
aspirations. This is a case of apartheid versus anti-apartheid. It is just an incongruity to think that old
polit-trickians can deliver a young, novel idea. Imagine Mugabe reading an old state
of the nation address to his parliament sometime without knowing it was an old
address. What of Buhari who read a stolen address of Obama sometime without
knowing, and who claimed ignorant of most happenings under his watch, prompting
the wife to raise alarm that he is not in control.
Imagine. The Nigerian president calls the youth lazy. Imagine losing 27 percent jobs that belong to
the youth under one year. Yet most youth in Nigeria drive the small scale
industry sector. In the music industry the Nigerian youth are world champions,
recording most millionaires than every other Africa nation. By 2020 the
Nigerian music industry is expected to generate 50 million US dollars. In the
SMS businesses they drive the economy by thriving under a counterproductive
economic environment provided by the clueless old politicians. It is obvious
that the leadership of this nation can only succeed when counterculture reaches
Abuja and drives away the old, expired cargoes, and sits on the exalted chair.
New engine is better than old engine. Old engine breaks down every now and then.
And sorry when the engine breaks down in the middle of nowhere, just as that of
Nigeria has broken down in the middle of the desert.
The youth are the livewire of the Nigerian economy as they
rebel against the high modernist economic policies that the old generation
politicians invoke to deceive them. I give the youth of Nigeria credit because,
judging from the rest of Africa, Nigeria ranks as the nation where youth hit
the street and make it without depending on the non-existent government. So counterculture
is constantly at work here. But the real counterculture would be when the youth
march en masse to Aso Rock, bring down the engine, dissect it, wash it and then
set it.
