Great Expectations!

Yesterday the Minister for Youth Affairs chaired the commissioning ceremony of the new President of the Cameroon Youth Council.

It was an impressive ceremony, bringing together not only youth representatives from all the ten regions of the country but also of high-level government officials, stressing the growing influence of the recently created body.

But the grandiose trappings of yesterday's event contrasted very much with the performance of the outgoing bureau of the Council whose output can only be qualified with some degree of askance. In fact the term can aptly be described as lackluster given the immediacy and immensity of work staring youths and decision-makers alike in the youth sector.

Government, by setting up an national youth council with representation at all the levels of the State structure, beginning from council areas or Sub-Divisions to Divisions and Regions, topping at national level, had envisaged an efficient and working interface wherein public officials and representatives of the youths themselves could usefully exchange on their future and aspirations.

The past few years of the functioning of the council have hardly produced this desired forum. Rather, the youths have instead used the opportunities offered for trying to insert themselves into the political decision-making process. Of course, many questions continue to linger over policies in existence about addressing youth unemployment, the voting age, the reorientation of the educational system to more squarely address the exigencies of the labour market and other inputs necessary for attaining economic emergence status by 2035.

Youths ought to make the best use of this opportunity to get together, compare notes and make useful proposals to government through this rare discussion point provided by the national youth council. The youths of Cameroon have great expectations from the new officials who took office yesterday and they can only meet these expectations if they quickly shun the bad tendencies and think over the numerous challenges facing the youth of Cameroon today and which can only be best articulated by them.