 old wine in new skins. I want to address the rhetoric that the answer to the myriad of issues in Nigeria lies solely in the hands of the youths. There is a quote attributed to Napoleon de Naparte, the French military general. He was the first emperor of France and one of the world's greatest military leaders. He said, and I quote, there cannot be a firmly established political state unless there is a teaching body with definitely recognized principles. If the child is not taught from infancy, and I paraphrase this part, what he ought to be, the state will not constitute a nation. It will rest on certain and shifting foundations and to constantly be exposed to disorder and change. This was coming from a man who although provided political stability and positive reforms to a country that was ravaged by a decade of revolution, ruled with absolute power and denied his people several rights. Nevertheless, I'm an advocate and I believe in not throwing away the baby with the bad water, point intended. I believe that the ongoing rhetoric that any one group will be responsible for the deliverance of Nigeria is a fallacy. I believe the greatest mistake any generation can make is to repeat the mistakes of his previous generation. At one time, these so-called recycled old politicians were once used. The bottom line is that if we are adamant at passing the buck and refuse to learn from the failures of the previous generation, history will unfortunately repeat itself. What we need is a paradigm shift, a change of mind, a change in the way we think about change. And no, this is not a political statement or a catchy cliche. As we all know, in the midst of the chaos in Nigeria, the only constant thing, ironically, has been change. Now, whether that has been changed for the better or in some cases, whether we've gone down the slippery slope for the worse is the real question. Nigeria, since its inception started out with so much promise, even though it had a shaky start, transiting from hardcore military rule to democracy, there was still that promise of a better future and a greater Nigeria. Well, in the years that followed, hope was literally dwindled in the face of empty political platitudes. Corruption has arrived and the country's reputation has been down in the dumps. The resultant effect is the brain drain and the mass migration of Nigerians to other countries. The poor are becoming more desperate in the face of blatant profligacy of the rich. Worse still, kidnapping is now the order of the day and the nation is being held to ransom. What happened? Where did we get it wrong? How can we as a people change this narrative? What are we doing now to advocate for change that is meaningful and impactful in our own spheres of influence? We can go on and on about the things that went wrong with the older generation. But until we look beyond the blame game and begin to address patterns and traditions which might have influenced the culture of excessive waste and lack of accountability, we might not make the transition to us positive change even with this new generation. I believe that the youth have so much to offer in terms of fresh perspective and innovation. But until there is clarity about what we call in New Nigeria and how we as a people can embody the ideals of integrity and accountability and begin to build and fortify systems which promote this, we will just be putting all wine into new skins. Wow, this is, I mean, it's just a plethora. I think this statement really captures the reality in Nigeria. I'm taking up what you said about the youth and older and new wine skins. I remember a few years back, I was on the flight back to Lingos and I happened to sit with the former dean of my faculty at the University of Lingos as a faculty of education. So by the time we got, he just invited me to go with them in their vehicle. And he was seated in the car with the commission of education of Kogi State at the time. And I remember one thing he said. He said the older generation are cascading the youth for being, sorry, rather, he said, the youth are fighting the older generation for destroying the country. Forgetting that at the time, the people we call the older generation were empowered. They were youth. Youth, absolutely. He actually said that the problem of Nigeria was in the hands of the youth. So when you were speaking, I just recalled that. I think it's easier now for some of our leaders who are in their golden years than you know, advanced to say the youth are the problem. But when they were empowered and what we've been called the genesis of all the shenanigans, they were actually youth. So is it a case of the inexperience of youth meeting huge power and responsibility and then resulting in the cataclysm that we have? I don't know what to say. You know, I've always had the belief that good governance is not provided by gender or by age. It has no gender, no age. So somebody that is 40 might be able to pull up multiple bills while he's in national assembly. Someone that's 25 will just be trying to drag and do a few things which is not supposed to do. And probably working outside the jurisdiction of his office. So when you look at the whole system, there's this agitation, we got to bring young people here, we need to bring young people here. I was at a dinner in Calaba and they were older politicians and they looked at me as a younger politician sitting there and they said, I'm calling youth who are agitating. You want to take over from us? Remember, we took over from our fathers but our fathers didn't have university degrees. We do. So we have to come up with a better strategy. Have we sat down to pull a strategy? You know, I don't think we use all this country have sat down to pull a strategy with trade the usual ball game or the protests agenda. Let's be honest, who protested more than the leaders we have now? There are people that are better at the game than we are. They can't bring the edge. They wrote the book on protests. So we are nowhere near that. I'm sure she'll ask something to say. Yeah, clearly I agree with you. But you know the most interesting thing is perhaps those old men who were here that helped build this country. The same ones built this country now. Perhaps that's the problem. I think that like everything else in life everyone must move on. I think I always advocate that. It's like a football team. I mean, I think, man, I don't know if you really play football or what football. I do, I'm an astronaut. Are you a lady? I'm an astronaut. He said the ladies, are you a lady? Essentially, the football team we have, we have older players who are still flourishing in their old age. They are sometimes almost in their 40s. That is even over 40. A good coach will build a new team around that player or around a few old players. That way, you are learning from the best. That is what Nigeria has to do. Nigeria has to put the best of the old people in positions and then build a fresh squad around those people who will then develop. I mean, that's what I mean. Finally, it's a bit similar in the States. I mean, I'm not sure that they can see that. I see that he's building some guys from the private sector, bringing them to the public sector and allowing them to, you know, have a taste of politics and governance. And that is the way Nigeria is going to improve because don't get me wrong. They may not be perfect, but if we keep doing that, eventually we'll get it right. I think that to join the conversation, there was something that Enor said when she was talking and she mentioned how Napoleon said that from infancy, setting the structures and the strategy. And I have observed something in Africa, a disaster with West Africa. I am looking for an established strong leadership academy or leadership institution that actually talks about how do you want to rule? How do you want to reign? How do you want to govern? Your own need to constitute. Right beside you, there's a political literacy... Well, if there's a political literacy person right beside me, then there might be some challenge. How competent is the awareness around what he's doing? What are the results? Because one thing that we do a lot in Africa and in Nigeria especially is we have a lot of activities. Can we quantify our results? Can we talk about our impact and is it at scale? I remember that I have a mentee and one of the things that I was pushing for her she was just 17. And I really wanted her to get into the African Leadership Academy in South Africa. Now, when we look at it, we look again, I've also been involved in the education space for a bit. And we observe that for America, you literally find that the president go through a particular university. There's a strategy in place that comes in from when you are already identifying skills. I know another thing that I also saw and I'm hinging my contribution on Eno's comment about Napoleon. And you understand that there's a system of education that talks to the Montessori system. And the Montessori system talks about identifying the skills and talent of children. So you have a whole classroom. And while you may have an instructor of some sort, the instructor is not there to come and tell you go left or go right or do A or do B. You have different five main arms of Montessori and the child gravitates towards with sensory and other areas like that. And what the essence of the system is is to find those innate skills that each person has. I think that tying this somewhat to our first advocacy about mental health, I think this, we need to start to groom from childhood. We need to start to look at systemic growth and change. Not just add to add, I think what Shola said about the old and the new. Yes, you're right. And that says, you know, you wash hands together, you create a system. And I think that that's one thing that we really need to do at this point in time. How do we change the narrative constructively and identify what it is that we want to do? Are we really beginning with the end in mind? There's, at the end of it all, we can talk all the rhetorics we can do. Everything we want to do, but we don't have a strategy, a system and a vision of what the results should look like. We may repeat again the same mistakes of our forefathers. On last week's episode, Emu Okwete says APC and PDP members are already wired a certain way. The honest youths have to infiltrate both parties and diplomatically alter their mindsets. Unfortunately, it is through these parties that we stand a chance of improving the system because they own everything. Follow us on our social media platforms on Facebook, plus TV Africa, hashtag the advocate NJ and Instagram at plusTVAfrica hashtag the advocate NJ. To catch up with the previous broadcast, go to plusTVAfrica.com forward slash the advocate NJ. Is the grass truly greener on the other side? Any time looks to answer this question, but only after the break.