Young Nigerians starved of heroes to emulate – Chimamanda
Award winning author Chimamanda Adichie says youths in Nigeria are starved of heroes to look up to.
Adichie was speaking while delivering keynote address at the Annual General Meeting of the Nigeria Bar Association in Lagos on Monday.
The meeting has as theme “Bold Transitions”.
“We are starved of heroes. Our young people do not find people to look up to anymore,” she said.
The writer also enjoined Nigerians to embrace self-criticism to foster transparency and good governance in the country.
“As long as we refuse to untangle the knot of injustice, peace cannot thrive. If we don’t talk about it, we fail to hold leaders accountable and we turn what should be transparent systems into ugly opaque cults,” she added.
“My experience made me think there’s something dead in us, in our society; a death of self-awareness and ability for self-criticism.
“There’s need for resurrection. We cannot avoid self-criticism but criticise the government. We cannot hide our own institutional failure while demanding transparency from the government.”
