OSCA WOVEN WORDS COMPETITION – ERHARHAGHEN ONOME BRORHIE
“Imagination gives birth to things unknown but the writer’s pen turns them into shapes and gives to them living breaths.”
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The 2018 OSCA WOVEN WORDS COMPETITION was organized by My Woven Words and it was only for undergraduates of tertiary institutions in Osun State as approved by the ministry of education, Osun state. There were Terms and Conditions for contestants.
OSCA Woven Words Competition remains the “first-of-its-kind” and “one-of-its-kind” in Osun state, Nigeria. To avoid Conflicts of Interest, we reached out to a number of unbiased scholars in a university outside Osun State to assess the submitted manuscripts and select the best contestants. All the contestant got a certificate of participation and some of the submitted manuscripts were selected for online publication.
TOPIC: The Tenacity of Nigerian Youths in National Development and Leadership Roles.
The Nigerian youth can be called so many things ― the old see him as incompetent and naive, unfit to make decisions and moves towards his own future, but he truly is respectful, he would not let anger flare up in home and strike the old down. What a well brought up child! His mother deserves accolades.
The old man calls him, he responds, walking in to the room clenching to a piece of paper, he recalls the events of the previous week, he’s been planning with his peers, all of whom have dropped their opinions and facts and inputs, a plan is formed, really detailed ― every step of the way planned for, to bring the best success to the family which is Nigeria. Today is the day he tell the old man that he wants to take the wheels of destiny and rendezvous with greatness.
He has conquered his own weakness, he approaches the old man, knowing how the drama will play out, he’ll try to present the plan but the old man will wave him away, nonetheless he intends to speak up today against all his instincts.
When these old men gather they make jokes of how dumb he is, never trying to seize power, too dumb to see how they were spending the family fortune, and how he’s too weak to do anything about it, he was even called lazy by his own father once in public, shaming home before the world.
Hurt, the Nigerian youth is watching, learning, the plan is still in his pocket, he checks it, editing details to match changing conditions in the world. He watched the old man, sick of his hypocrisy, but he’s patient, he knows the old man has only a few vain years to live, he laughs at the thought that “death is all but a delayed eventuality”
Many have come up and said go on, take the old man by the neck and choke life out of him, they remind him he can’t wait, that the old man and his peers have stalled his progress, and he’ll soon slip into retrogression, but he shakes them off, he knows nothing good will come out of violence.
This youth is strong, he can adapt to any situation. when the old man and his peers taunt him with the worse conditions; bad roads, poor electricity, poor connectivity, the Nigerian youth adapts and makes the best of the situation, he goes abroad sometimes and win prizes, he speaks wisdom and the world listens, he draws art and the world is awestruck, he sings and the world dances, he writes and the world reads.
He knows there’s a time for everything, and when his time comes he’ll not pursue his mates that have gone ahead, he’ll overtake them and create new frontiers. Until then, he’s planning, watching and learning, they think he’s dumb, but it is said that “the gentility of a tiger is not synonymous with stupidity”
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