Prof. Atukwei  Okai has inspired African Youth to step up and be heard at the just ended African Youth and Governance Conference in a paper titled   "Linking visions and dreaming together: politics and your neighbor’s navel" We have gathered together here today because we wish to declare our agreement with the man who said that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians! It is therefore clear that the youth of Africa are declaring that this is their time to step up and be heard, and to step in, in order to offer their contribution to the body of concerns and ideas and the glorious galaxy of youthful energies and loyalties that seek to steady Africa on her feet and point her face and steps in the direction that will lead her into our kingdom come.

  “Linking visions and dreaming together: politics and your neighbor’s navel”
By Prof. Atukwei Okai
University of education, Winneba
(Secretary-General)
Pan African Writers’ Association(PAWA
At the
African youth and governance
Conference-accra 2009
(Accra International Conference Centre)

I am going to brainstorm with you about politics, that us, life. It is the workings of the system of two or more human beings coming together and being together that has brought us here today. You are here not for the simple or sole reason of looking at your navel, but because your ability to even look at your navel is directly conditioned n the condition of your neighbor’s navel. And your decision to gather here today, as the blows of the century and the kicks of current reality haven given you wisdom to realize, has been persuaded into acceptance by a recognition of the fact that it is easier and more effective to heal your neighbor’s navel than bending your head and trying to figure out how to heal your own navel!  
In other words, therefore, our common viability as individuals and our common welfare and security are achievable and guaranteeable only to the extent that we understand and agree to link minds, and think together and link visions and dream together and link hands in order to labour and progress together.
We have gathered together for developmental cross-pollination;  we therefore need intellectual cross-navellisation- an interconnecting of our intellectual navels, for the maximization of the potential within our power.
And all this is possible only if we are enlightened; you need to strive for enlightenment. We are often exorted and advised to struggle for excellence.
Well, one secret to keep in mind is that the road to excellence goes through only enlightenment! We need to ask ourselves whether we have fully and adequately prepared ourselves to intervene effectively in Africa’s struggle for full emancipation. Do we know the time of day as far Africa’s condition is concerned? We should strive to be fully informed about what is going on in Africa. It should be useful to keep in mind these principles:
a)    “Man, know thyself” and empower yourself
b)    African, know your Africa
c)    My sister, be your sister’s keeper.
We can help transform Africa by facilitating the empowerment of the youth. We can only achieve the empowerment of the youth through a striving for enlightenment. The path of self-empowerment comes through self-enlightenment. And we can acquire enlightenment through the pursuit of knowledge, through reading.
It is only self-enlightenment that can lead to self-knowledge, self-discovery.  It is only after this that we gain self-confidence, self-expression and then, self-assertion. These are the demands of the current knowledge-based and knowledge-driven society. Our only key to self-development is through the acquisition and deployment of knowledge. I am certain you will agree with me that it is only a self-empowered youth who can make a positive difference to Africa’s condition, advancement and destiny.

The African youth must befriend the book. It is only through befriending the book that you will discover to your great advantage and glory that all the great men who have made a difference to their communities and the world all befriended the book: from Kwegyir Aggrey, Mahatma Ghandi, Kwame Nkrumah to Bill Gates. Why is all this self-preparation vital for the African youth? The answer is simple: the present generation of elders must and will get tired tomorrow morning. The generation shift will continue to evolve. Someone will have to step into the shoes of the departing generation. The one who will step in, will she be fully equipped? How well do out youth know the time of today?
For example, one aspect of an effective youth policy will be the building of the capacity of the youth through a serious programme of an urgent provision of libraries. Vision is essential for survival, “where there is no vision, the people perish”.
We have met here, to all intents and purposes, to intervene in a situation, which as captured in the communiqué on the consultative stakeholders’ forum on youth development in Ghana, shows the young people in Africa as being “faced with perilous livelihood challenges like gross unemployment and underployments, hunger and disease, poverty, conflict and crime, drug substance use and abuse, gender disparities, negative effects of urbanization and a lack of capacity to take advantage of today’s social and economic opportunities”.  
All the above is happening, as pointed out by Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, in his book, Africa Must Unite, in a “continent (that) gives us the second largest land stretch in the world. The natural wealth of Africa is estimated to be greater than that of almost any other continent in the world. To draw the most from our existing and potential means for the achievement of abundance and a fine social order, we need to unify our efforts, our resources, our skills and intentions”

It is clear therefore that as far back as 1963, forty-six years ago, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah noted the need for us “to unify our efforts, our resources, our skills and intentions”. And so today, this gathering, however late, is well-intentioned and welcome.
It is necessary, neventheless to also take note that this very continent whose resources are not only haemoraghing economically, but is really having the blood sucked out of her veins by the vampire vacuum cleaner mouths of all sorts of elements. In the 2nd quarter (2009) issue of the African Banker magazine, in an article entitle, “stashing The Loot: How Africa is Being Bled Dry”, Khadija Sharife, the writer, states that since 1975, capital flight has cost sub-Saharan Africa an estimated $600bn.
Certainly such a state of affairs cannot be in the interest of Africa’s youth. This is why I fully support your call on the youth of Ghana and Africa, as stated in your communiqué, “to dig deeper into their creative reserves and pull human and financial resources together to build partnerships and strategic not works to help break the cycle of poverty” it is instructive and heartening that in that paragraph of your communiqué, you speak of digging deeper into your “creative reserves and pulling human and financial resources together… to help break the cycle of poverty”, because, again, as Dr. Kwame Nkrumah declares in his book, Africa Must Unite, “Unless we plan to lift Africa up out of her poverty, she will remain poor. We need to make an energetic effort “to interrupt the circular causation of poverty”. And the essential industrial machine, which alone can break the vicious circle of Africa’s poverty, can only be built on a wide enough bases to make the take-off realistic if it is planned on a contental scale”.
The question of pulling your human and financial resources together is a most crucial aspect of the whole operation for salvation because it is quite a tricky undertaking. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah spells out the dangers when, in the same book he responds thus: “But we cannot mobilize our present and potential resources without concerned effort. If we developed our potentialities in men and natural resources in separate isolated groups, our energies would soon be dissipated in the struggle to outbid one another. Economic friction among us would certainly lead to bitter political rivalry, such as for many years hampered the pace of growth and development in Europe.

It is therefore in this connection that we need to seriously address the core essence of this conference on “African Youth and Governance”.
We have gathered together here today because we wish to declare our agreement with the man who said that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians! It is therefore clear that the youth of Africa are declaring that this their time to step up and be heard, and to step in in order to offer their contribution to the body of concerns and ideas and the glorious galaxy of youthful energies and loyalties that seek to steady Africa on her feet and point her face and steps in the direction that will lead her into our kingdom come.
Africa of the 21st century still stands in great need of dedicated visionaries and fearless pioneers. Will you step up to be counted, empowered and commissioned into a service of sacrifice and achievement for Africa’s sake? Will you choose, decide and volunteer to enlisted into the campaign for Africa’s renaissance and long-awaited glorious triumph?
O, proud and beloved African Youth, will you?
God bless you.
God bless Africa.
I thank you