Human rights activist and lawyer, Mr. Festus Keyamo, has
called for attitudinal change among young Nigerians, saying that
dreaming big without having the right attitude would lead to failure. He
expressed sadness that the country’s youths want the best things of
life without working for it.Could you tell us the secret of your popularity?
I do not know because I do not do thing to attract attention. You
cannot live your life thinking at every point in time how people would
react, bothering about whether people will react negatively or
positively. I think the right way to live, is to do things according to
the dictates of your good conscience. What I mean by that is, you have
both good and bad conscience. Once you think it’s right, and your God
will be happy with you, do it. Most times the aspirations of man is
quite different from that of God. Continue.
I tell you, when you commune with your God and do what is right, it attracts a lot of attention. If you follow the regular path, people will not notice that someone has passed through it. It’s like a bush path, where people regular pass through. It’s hard to notice when one single person passes through such path, but when you cut your own path people will defiantly come and ask who passed through here.
What I find objectionable is that our youth today do not have interest in charting their own paths; rather they prefer the old regular path, be it rational or irrational. They always like the easy regular path be it good or bad, they do not care to know if that simple part is morally good or not.
The young men of today just want the easiest means to the top. This has robed off on boys in the secondary schools and undergraduates. Most of them are doing unhealthy things to survive. Most of them have been arrested for armed robbery, Internet fraud and other crimes.
I was with an undergraduate recently and he told me all the brand of cars that passed by. Incidentally, I never knew those cars, but the undergraduate was mentioning their names.
He went as far as telling me their specifications and prices. Now that is quite dangerous because if you are dreaming and thinking above your capacity and you are actually consumed by such, it’s wrong. It is not wrong to dream, but when you dream of lofty achievement when you don’t have the capacity and you are being consumed by same, then it will lead you to doing unhealthy things. Our youth needs attitudinal change. They have to work, to become a success.
Could you tell us about your background?
I do not even know who I am. What I know is that there is a graduation in life that you must pass through before you can achieve all round success. Let me tell you those graduations. When you want to set out to the larger world, after school or after whatever you have done, maybe after learning a trade, you must, first of all, develop a passion for something. It is not money, because if you think of money first, you will destroy yourself.
You must develop a passion for something and after that you must seek to do that.
Professor Wole Soyinka read literature, which most people run away from. Some people would rather do Law or other things. Today, Soyinka is a Nobel Laureate with literature; that is where his passion lies. I have seen some of my wonderful classmate in the past who red Law, but they just could not continue. Some of them went back to read poetry.
When you have passion for a particular field, get into that field and have a job satisfaction; when you have job satisfaction, you will wake-up every morning feeling happy.
I had a case sometime ago and you helped out without charges. Now if I were not Zaaki Azzay or your friend, would you still render such service free?
I will, if I believe in your course. I have helped so many people. The only criteria is this: I need to believe in your cause; but it is not an open policy for everyone to just work in here for such favour, because some people take undue advantage of it. When you walk in, you need to strike a cord in me, to catch my attention; so your objective must be clear.
When you have a client who you know is guilty, would you defend such a person in court?
It depends on whether he has a valid defence. I think you are talking about criminal liability. People do not understand the complexity of criminal trials. Somebody may come in and confess to me that he killed somebody. That is the beginning point, whether you defend him or not depends on the circumstance that led to that killing. The next question would be, what happened? He may say, ‘oh I was driving along the road, 80kph and within the speed limit and there was a pedestrian bridge, but the guy did not use it, rather he ran across the road. I know I was the one that killed him, frankly I killed him.’
Yes, it matters, but to the ordinary person, that man is guilty. They will say why are you defending him when he killed him? But then, there is a defence for accident in law.
I tell you, when you commune with your God and do what is right, it attracts a lot of attention. If you follow the regular path, people will not notice that someone has passed through it. It’s like a bush path, where people regular pass through. It’s hard to notice when one single person passes through such path, but when you cut your own path people will defiantly come and ask who passed through here.
What I find objectionable is that our youth today do not have interest in charting their own paths; rather they prefer the old regular path, be it rational or irrational. They always like the easy regular path be it good or bad, they do not care to know if that simple part is morally good or not.
The young men of today just want the easiest means to the top. This has robed off on boys in the secondary schools and undergraduates. Most of them are doing unhealthy things to survive. Most of them have been arrested for armed robbery, Internet fraud and other crimes.
I was with an undergraduate recently and he told me all the brand of cars that passed by. Incidentally, I never knew those cars, but the undergraduate was mentioning their names.
He went as far as telling me their specifications and prices. Now that is quite dangerous because if you are dreaming and thinking above your capacity and you are actually consumed by such, it’s wrong. It is not wrong to dream, but when you dream of lofty achievement when you don’t have the capacity and you are being consumed by same, then it will lead you to doing unhealthy things. Our youth needs attitudinal change. They have to work, to become a success.
Could you tell us about your background?
I do not even know who I am. What I know is that there is a graduation in life that you must pass through before you can achieve all round success. Let me tell you those graduations. When you want to set out to the larger world, after school or after whatever you have done, maybe after learning a trade, you must, first of all, develop a passion for something. It is not money, because if you think of money first, you will destroy yourself.
You must develop a passion for something and after that you must seek to do that.
Professor Wole Soyinka read literature, which most people run away from. Some people would rather do Law or other things. Today, Soyinka is a Nobel Laureate with literature; that is where his passion lies. I have seen some of my wonderful classmate in the past who red Law, but they just could not continue. Some of them went back to read poetry.
When you have passion for a particular field, get into that field and have a job satisfaction; when you have job satisfaction, you will wake-up every morning feeling happy.
I had a case sometime ago and you helped out without charges. Now if I were not Zaaki Azzay or your friend, would you still render such service free?
I will, if I believe in your course. I have helped so many people. The only criteria is this: I need to believe in your cause; but it is not an open policy for everyone to just work in here for such favour, because some people take undue advantage of it. When you walk in, you need to strike a cord in me, to catch my attention; so your objective must be clear.
When you have a client who you know is guilty, would you defend such a person in court?
It depends on whether he has a valid defence. I think you are talking about criminal liability. People do not understand the complexity of criminal trials. Somebody may come in and confess to me that he killed somebody. That is the beginning point, whether you defend him or not depends on the circumstance that led to that killing. The next question would be, what happened? He may say, ‘oh I was driving along the road, 80kph and within the speed limit and there was a pedestrian bridge, but the guy did not use it, rather he ran across the road. I know I was the one that killed him, frankly I killed him.’
Yes, it matters, but to the ordinary person, that man is guilty. They will say why are you defending him when he killed him? But then, there is a defence for accident in law.
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