Sierra leone News

Junior Navo Breaks Silence

Written by Silas Gbandia

Sunday, 05 July 2009 01:08

One of Sierra Leone’s upcoming youth leaders and business men, commonly known by all as Junior Navo has had little time to usually talk to the press on his aims and objectives for youths in his country. However, he was last week approached by Silas Gbandia (SG) of thesierraleonenews.com, citizen radio and newstimeafrica.com, to explain a few things relating to what he has been associated with over the last few years; Youth Empowerment in Sierra Leone. Silas began by asking Mr. junior Navo (JN);

SG: What is your vision for the youth of Sierra Leone?

JN: As a youth myself within the youth age bracket, my vision is to help my fellow youths so that we can grow together and contribute to national development. That’s basically my vision.

SG: When did you become interested in youth issues?

JN: Well, I’ve always shown interest in youth issues; but actually I began to play an active role in youth issues around 2000 when I came back to Sierra Leone. As a young man, most of my colleagues do approach me to help them out with financial problems they may be going through and also to join them in promoting developmental issues. I’ve always been with them and on various occasions reciprocating to their call for assistance.

SG: Since you’ve been interacting with youths, what do they generally talk about?

JN: The normal call or cry of most young people when you go around Sierra Leone, is “you borbor de”[a krio expression meaning your boy is here]. Some will tell you I want to go to school, I want to pay my college fees, I want to do this, I want to do that and so on. In the past and even now I listen to their requests and do the best I can to meet to their requests. Though I can’t respond to all what they ask for but I would do as much as I can. Those who know the facts would tell you that I’ve been going to Fourah Bay College and the other colleges to give general donations. I’ve sponsored several youth activities, groups, and individuals to name but a few.

SG: How best do you think youths can actualise themselves, as young people dream a lot about lofty future?

JN: One advice I give to young people is that if you are going to school you should concentrate on it, if you are learning a trade put all your attention to it as well. If you are not any of these then try to choose one so that at the end of the day it will help you in future to take care of your family. That’s the advice I give to my fellow youths. That’s why most people who approach me to tell me they are in school, university or whatever and need assistance, I always make sure I help them out with what little I can as they are in the learning process. But basically my advice to young people is that you either choose between going to school or learning a trade. Some may say they don’t have school fees, and others will say there are no jobs so why bother to learn a trade. But I always stress that we should continue learning and keep the faith and sure there would be light at the end of the tunnel one day.

SG: You are a successful business and a philanthropist. What is the secret weapon to your success?

JN: It involves a lot of challenges but above all else you should place your trust in God. Ask God to help and guide you through and for you to move on. Trust me; it’s not easy in a country like this for you to do something that would come out 100% successful. There’re so many detractors, there are so many that will want to pull you down. You just need to be steadfast. Get a genuine heart; don’t do anything with a hidden purpose. Just be good to people as it is stated in the Bible and Koran. As a youth, I hear the day to day cry of my colleagues out there and I believe in sharing with them what little I have. Above all else you have to believe ion god and put whatever you are doing in the name of God. Trust me you will come out successful. You will meet lots of ordeals, a lot will happen, people will want to bring you down but at the end of the day you will keep your head above water and you will move around as a successful man and successful person.

SG: What should be the relationship between youths and those in leadership?

JN: The youth population is more than half. About 60% of the population is made up of young people. So basically this country is owned by young people. One thing I always say with regard to the relationship between youth and the government is that we should be law abiding. We should stop to divide ourselves along political, regional and tribal divides. Whoever leads us is a Sierra Leonean as well. As youths we should move as one and support each other. As I’m saying the bulk of the population is young people. If we fail, this nation will fail. So we should ensure we don’t fail. In the next 5, 10 or so years most of our elders will not be around. As President Reagan said “we all have our differences but that should not separate us apart”. We should complement the effort of government. We should work with our leaders. We should draw their attention when they want to go the wrong way because would share the blame when they fail. We need to do so many things to make Sierra Leone a better place. Coming to your question, in as much as we have recalcitrant colleagues there’re a lot of young people who are transforming and re-branding the youth. Go to the Law Court building and you will prove that 60-70% of all the lawyers are youths. Go as well to the hospitals; most of our doctors and nurses are young people. So let more young people come on board to go learn a trade or continue attending school. If we move with that attitude, we will move yhis country forward and when the time is ripe for us to take over leadership it will be peaceful and would sierra Leone beyond where the elders would leave it.

SG: Are youths today obedient to national leadership from the home right through to the presidency?

JN: Yes! It’s a bit an elastic and open question in the sense that it’s wide. There are two sides to the coin. Indeed you have a lot of youths who are troublesome and don’t respect authority. It often starts from the home. Most times when people don’t respect their parents at home the will tend to do likewise to national leaders. On the other side of the coin, most times politicians would use the youths to dance for them, do this or that during elections and at the end of the day when the elections are over the youth would be abandoned until another election period comes up. It’s vice-versa. In as much as we have recalcitrant youths there are many who are law abiding. Youths who are not law abiding, who are always engaged in fighting, quarrelling stigmatise all of us. Those who champion fights and sow seeds of discords present we the youths as perpetrators as well as victims. And that is how many of our colleagues have been presenting in us in all the confusions that occurred in the recent past. But that not withstanding, we still have a lot of youths who are law abiding and contributing to nation building. We have so much young lawyers, engineers, doctors and business people like me in the country. Many chief executives of companies today on Sierra Leone are youths. That’s why I like to meet young colleagues especially those down below the strata time and again to discuss these issues.

At home our parents and guardians are the leaders and we should ensure we imbibe the good virtues they teach us.

SG: You’ve mentioned all of these, but what exactly is wrong with the youths of today?

JN: Some will tell you they do what they do because there are no jobs. Some of us would want to use this argument to cause problems in our communities. You have some of us, looking back at the recent past, who have participated actively in all violent confrontations eventhough they belong to no group but ready as hired warriors to champion violent incidents. We are trying to rebrand ourselves so that youth would not be described with violent, dancing and fighting for politicians and irresponsibility but positively labelled with responsibility, respectability and leaders to transform Sierra Leone.

SG: When did you realise that youths are going wrong?

JN: Honestly since I’ve been involved in youth activities. I mean since 2000. I’ve always notice problem with youths. When it comes to inter-secondary school athletics sport, football matches it end up in fighting. Fourah Bay College sometime ago precisely 3 years ago was having problem with the white man –black man divide. Mohamed Kallon and I went there and brought the two camps together and in the end formed a peace club on the campus.

SG: Even after the elections?

JN: As I said there are two sides to the situation. After the previous general elections, violent increased dramatically. It increased drastically. It increased in a way some of us could not understand. Violence redoubled in politics, sports and elsewhere. Let’s take the university and politics out of it. Recently I heard Manchester United played a match with Barcelona and a youth ended up stabbing his colleague. It appears we are more temperamental today than before in terms of violence. I’ve established peace clubs in secondary schools, work with ghetto youths and other youth groups to identify the root causes of the entire violent outburst. We have been having violent outburst in the past prior to the elections but has increased after the election. We need to know why so that we can mitigate it in future.

SG: As a young person you contested the 2007 parliamentary elections and lost but you went around to schools with the parliamentarian who won in your constituency. What massages were you trying to send out by that singular action?

JN: I went into politics and contested the 2007 election as a youth. An ideology I’ve always carried is that for Sierra Leone to develop we need to have younger participation into the political administration. I have that conviction tsking into consideration where I schooled in England. I saw Tony Blair when he came to the political limelight and go back to America today Obama in his 40s is president. Madagascar’s former governor is now president and he’s just 34. everywhere there is a democratic revolution which is bring young people into governance. Based on this I decided to come into politics but as the Koran states it was not God’s time. I decided thereafter to work with the winer and we went around for all to see that we are united as a way of moving Sierra Leone forward. Young leaders Sierra Leone Network on the 1st of November gave me the award of youth ambassador like a goodwill award and not a political appointment or national office as some are misconstruing the whole award. So I used that opportunity to go to places together with the honourable to tell the youths that if we are together then they should copy that example. It’s just that some selfish people would like to trade hate messages but that we have not allowed ourselves to fall prey to.

SG: What do you think about the youth commission?

JN: It’s a welcome development and I think capable people should be given the responsibility to man it.