Youths and Politics: A Call for Independence and Integrity

By Emmanuel Philip Tumba

Young people must begin to rethink how they approach politics.

Before anything else, learn a skill or a trade. If you need to go back to school, please do. Build a career outside politics. Create multiple sources of income. Become a professional at something meaningful, something that can sustain you with dignity.

When you can stand on your own feet, you will not have to depend on handouts from politicians to survive. And when hunger is not controlling your decisions, you can truly tell the difference between what is right and what is wrong.

Politics becomes far more meaningful when you are independent, when you can actually have a mind of your own.

When a young person depends entirely on politicians for survival, it becomes easy to manipulate him. Today, Hon. A feeds you, and you start attacking his perceived opponents. You spread half-truths, exaggerations, and sometimes outright lies, even against people who might have been your future helpers.

Tomorrow, Hon. B gives you a little money, and suddenly you forget all the kindness you received from Hon. A. You switch sides and begin attacking him instead, twisting facts and fabricating stories.

After some time, Hon. C appears with another offer, and you move again, repeating the same pattern.

Within ten years, you may have changed camps four or five times. And each time you leave a camp, you make sure you fight the people you once praised.

Pause for a moment and ask yourself honestly:

If someone writes the true story of your political activities over the last ten years, what would it say about your loyalty, your integrity, and your character?

Would it show someone who stands for principles…

Or someone who stands only where the money is?

Think about it this way.

It would be like a woman who marries four husbands in ten years. She leaves the first husband for the second because she claims he can no longer take care of her. After some time, she leaves the second for the third for the same reason. Then she moves again.

At the end of the day, people will not just question the husbands. They will question her own character.

This reflection made me ask a deeper question:

Why can’t our youths engage in politics based on issues?

Why can’t they promote their candidates the way companies promote their products?

For example, when Toyota advertises its cars, it talks about the quality, reliability, and features of Toyota. It does not spend its entire time attacking Mercedes-Benz. And Mercedes-Benz does not panic and start fabricating lies about Toyota simply because Toyota released a new model.

Healthy competition focuses on strengths, not constant attacks.

But many young people in politics today have become tools for spreading propaganda. Out of hunger and joblessness, they allow politicians to turn them into weapons against one another.

This dependency has created a dangerous situation where common sense is no longer common.

Some youths will twist a simple response someone gives to two individuals and turn it into a story that he has insulted an entire constituency—just to please a politician.

But let us not forget something important:

The world is watching.

History is being written every day. Your words, your actions, your loyalty, and your betrayals are all leaving a record.

People may forgive you tomorrow.

But the lies you spread, the betrayals you committed, and the things you were willing to do for money will not easily be forgotten.

That is why young people must first build themselves, get proper education, skills, careers, businesses, so that when they step into politics, they do so with dignity, independence, and principles.

Because when a young person is economically independent, he cannot be easily bought. And when he cannot be bought, his voice becomes powerful.

That is the kind of youth leadership our society truly needs.