I keep saying this and I will say it again. When I engage young people on trending issues especially when we discuss politics. I always come to the conclusion that most of them are really not in touch with history. An average young Nigerian is more engrossed with social media frivolities. Many of them are always on comedy or controversial pages and spend less time expanding their knowledge base.
I can vividly recall an episode where my nephew asked me what ALIKO DANGOTE looks like. I looked at him and paused for a minute and tried to understand how a young mind really functions in an environment where information is just one click away. It’s not that he is not intelligent. He is super smart. But I’ve come to realise that the human mind can be so selective when matters of interest are key. I waited the whole day for him to get it but still, he was yearning for an answer.
I decided to relieve him of his yearnings by asking him if he has got a SMARTPHONE! He said yes. Then I asked if he knows how to use GOOGLE. That’s when he realised that he really goofed. The minds of young people today are so fixed on fun and entertainment, so much that every other thing is irrelevant. If these kids had taken a little time to do research on who ANGELIQUE KIDJO is, I am very sure that would inform their decisions.
Who is to Blame?
I blame everyone who got here before them. The federal government removed HISTORY from the secondary school curriculum for many years. Why they decided to do this is still a mystery to date. Public Libraries have disappeared into oblivion.
I remember when I was in the Federal School of Arts and Science, CMS, Marina library was my favourite spot. Not many of our music veterans have autobiographies, lectures, and documents that will be useful to the next generation. Our Radio and TV stations are 24/7 blasting Afro beats music videos and music. They hardly play classic records. So every young person will not have the opportunity to even know there were musicians before WIZKID and DAVIDO.
I Listen to the Radio a lot in the UK, and guess what? Out of every 10 new songs, you get to hear at least 3 old songs. That’s why my kids can talk about Musical Youth, Prince and SWV. I attended Prince’s show party at the O2 in the 2000s. The average age of the audience was about 25. I kept asking myself how on earth did these people get to know PRINCE? They were probably in their diapers when Prince started.
These young people went on Angelique Kidjo‘s page and tore her apart with nasty trolling. Her management had to disable the comments. I know this is not just about poor knowledge of history, a lot of bad parenting has taken its toll on our kids. These are our future leaders abi? I believe say the “bad loser” mentality of Nigerian politicians don master them. We lost to Ghana in the last match, and we tore down the stadium. Hmmm… we need to redirect the course of this trajectory. Peace 
