I still remember the reaction of many Nigerians in 2010 when former Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida came out to contest for the Presidency under the platform of Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP. “He is too old. He should go and sit down. We want young people,” many shouted. And how old was Babangida then? He was just 69—exactly the current age of Hilary Clinton (born October 26, 1947) who many same Nigerians wished to be the next President of the United States. So why seeing IBB at 69 as too old then but refusing to see Hilary Clinton at 69 as too old now?
Again, when the current President, General Mohammadu Buhari offered himself to run for the Presidency in 2011, so many Nigerians shouted: “No no no! He will soon die! He is too old. He should go and sit down. We want a young president”—which was one of the reasons why some Nigerians voted for the younger (53 years old) Goodluck Jonathan. Yet, Buhari’s age then (69) is also the current age of Hilary Clinton who just contested for the American presidency and was massively supported by many Nigerians, including former First Lady Mrs Patience Jonathan who even declared during Clinton’s campaign that she felt inspired by her and will in fact consider contesting for the Nigerian presidency! So why?
Again, when General Buhari came back to re-contest for the presidency in 2015, many Nigerians shouted, “No no no! He is too old. He will soon die. We want a young president.” Yet, Buhari was just 72 then—almost the same age of American newly elected President Donald Trump (who is currently 70). In America, of course, Donald Trump is not considered too old to rule, rather what were considered before the election both in his case and in the case of Hilary Clinton were mainly their health and their manifestoes. So what’s really happening in Nigeria?
I think the answer is very simple: Many Nigerians believe that anything done in America or in any part of the Western world as a whole is perfectly okay. So if America okays a 69 or 70 years old man or woman contesting for the presidency, then it’s certainly okay and shouldn’t be questioned. Hence, applying this “principle”, some of these Nigerians, even though they were well brought up in Nigeria by their parents to have the fear of God, have gone to the Western world only to learn how to insult God simply because they saw some Westerners (not even all) insulting God.
As for the fanatical agitation to discard old people in order to have young leaders—almost a general mentality of our age which also exists in other countries but I think NOT as it massively exists in Nigeria at present—I think it is also a problem that needs to be addressed. It has already been addressed by some.
In a chapter of his book (‘The Academic Inn’) entitled, ‘Let Life Begin at Sixty’, late Leopold Kohr, professor of economics at the University of Puerto Rico and later professor of political philosophy at the University College of Wales, writes:
“The worst thing that could befall the young of our time is that the older generation might abdicate its mission and invite their offspring, as the last king of Saxony did when he told his republican successors in 1918 to ‘Clear away your shit yourselves.’ Untranslated his immortal abdication message spoken in Saxon dialect was: ‘Macht euch euren Dreck allene’.
“What would be the result of such parental abdication? In the first place, youth would at once lose its function which is to be the future of the human race. For, once in power, it would be its present. Assuming the reins of government, it would take the place of the older generation, thereby becoming itself the older generation. It would cease to be young.”
And there are consequences. He writes:
“Since the effective age of man is determined not so much by calendar years as by the successive functions he performs in the course of a lifetime, a man assuming office at the biological age of let us say 20 would, as I suggested in an earlier column, functionally be in his forties. If he is a top dog at 30, his administrative or dog-age would, in effect, be 60; and it would be 80 when, after 15 years in office, his biological age is only 45.
“This was indeed the reality in earlier centuries when the functions of life had to be compressed into fewer years because of the high probability of an early death. Alexander the Great had to do most of his conquering in his twenties to finish his job by the time he died at 33. Caesar, who complained that, at the age when Alexander died, he had as yet achieved nothing, was all the better off for it. Had he started earlier, he might have been stabbed to death at 30 instead of 58. By contrast, Mozart who began composing at 6, managed to compress the lifework of a man of 90 into the biological age of 35; and Schubert was worn out at 31 after having written a treasure of music that would have taken a man with more time at his disposal 75 years to complete.
“But as our biological life expectancy lengthened, its functional subdivisions were gradually both delayed and stretched to bring them into harmony with the longer years for their discharge. Thus Francois Quesnay could wait until he was 62 to turn from medicine to economics, and died at 80 as the greatest economist France has ever produced. Pirandello still managed to become Italy’s foremost modern dramatist though he was already 50 by the time he wrote his first play. Clemenceau, who was 65 when he assumed his first prime-ministership, and 76 when he became the saviour of France, was still so young at 87 that he wistfully confided to a friend at the sight of a pretty teenage girl: ‘Wouldn’t it be marvellous to be 70 again?’ And Churchill who was 62 when he reached the climactic office which the young generation now claims at 20, and celebrated his 80th birthday during his second prime-ministership, had still enough wit at 90, when a photographer expressed the hope that he be around for taking a picture on his 100th birthday, to tell him with a growl: ‘I don’t see why not. You look young and hearty enough.'”
Prof. Kohr argues that the real question for the intimidated older generation is not “What does youth want?”—of course it wants instant gratification, instant power, instant sex, instant take-over—but “What does it prefer?”
“Does it prefer to assume the responsibilities of existence at the cost the boxing champion must pay who is classed middle-aged at 20, old at 30, and washed up at 40? Or does it prefer, like Churchill, Clemenceau, Mao, Adenauer, or De Gaulle, to be functionally still young at 60, and in its prime at 70, by postponing until later years what in all previous ages had to be faced early in life: the Royal Saxon job of clearing away the social shit?
“I presume, if it is put to them this way, there can be no doubt as to what the young prefer. After all, they themselves realise in the depth of their hearts that the sooner they start, the quicker they are through; that the bulk of life that counts is spent in one’s later, not one’s earlier, years.; that their future will be the greater the older they get, not the younger they are at take-off time; and that by assuming the tasks of their elders prematurely, they will not make the hypocritical, dirty, older generation cleaner but the youthful clean generation dirty earlier than is necessary. So what the young subconsciously really ask of their seniors is the same service Ulysses asked of his sailors: ‘Stuff your ears, bind us to the mast, and don’t listen to our shouts when we come near the island of the Sirens and, lured by their melodies, demand to be taken ashore. For if we are, we shall all be destroyed.”
Aside Kohr’s argument, I personally don’t think that civilian President Jonathan at 57 was even physically much stronger than (retired General) President Buhari at 72 or 73. (The evidence of this has of course manifested clearly since 2015 in the massive activities the latter engages himself in even as he waxes ever stronger on each passing day).
As for the wisdom to rule which is always much present in the older people than it is in the younger ones—though it is equally true that this wisdom is sometimes much present in some exceptional young people than it is in their elders, like in the case of Jonathan in whom it seems to be ever naturally present—I think that this would have aided President Buhari at 72 to govern Nigeria much better than a younger President in his fifties like Jonathan if not for the former’s naturally biased attitudes against some citizens—especially the Igbos—which reflect in several areas in his administration, such as his lopsided appointments as well as his senseless killing of armless Biafrans, and so on.
Jonathan E. Ifeanyi
