Every human being has a baggage of all good and bad genes. But what matters is that we should not trigger any one of the bad genes through our actions. Unfortunately we, as individuals and community, seem to be bent on nurturing all our bad genes as we have come to believe that our writ will run only if we are rogues, liars, cheats, oppressors, tyrants, thieves and corrupt. This may be the result of the suppression and oppression that we have gone through over the years at the hands of our rulers in the governing dispensation. How do we go about setting our home in order? Indeed this is not a small job. It has taken decades for our society to fall down to this level and therefore it should equally take decades for such a society to rise again from the grave. Over the past many decades of political turmoil, we have been forced to bite the dust and been reduced to the lowest levels of human sustenance through political manoeuvring and manipulations. There is possibly no secret or intelligence agency, covert or overt, that has not made our soil and the people as its experimenting turf in evolving strategies for oppressing and suppressing peoples’ democratic rights and keeping them under subjugation. No, there is no denying that we have been subjected to continued deprivation in all fields of life. No wonder, the resultant generation, our youths, is what it ought to be, brought up in fear, intimidation, poverty, unemployment and suppression by brutality of political and police/security forces. In fact it can be said that it is out of this insecurity and fear that our youths have become violent and arrogant. Unable to teach lessons to those who oppress them day in and day out, our youths have turned inwards on their own people, expressing their anger on them. Yes, their bad genes are triggered every time they see injustice done to them. And having lost hope on those in authority and in the legal systems, everybody starts resorting to brute force without caring for the consequences. Clearly it is about time we take up the responsibility, instill confidence in our youths and tell them that we, as elders, are here to support them and show them the right kind of path to tread — democratic, peaceful and winning. Shouldn’t we teach them how to trigger the right genes and not the bad ones? Apparently conventional teaching platforms have failed to imbibe the right kind of attitude and ethos in our youths. Politics of isolation and agitation has only robbed the opportunities of work, employment, education and the desire to live, making them suicidal in their behaviour. Yes, it is time that we look inwards, introspect and analyze ourselves and our own strengths that we can employ for our and the society’s benefit. We must start from self, to our children and others in the family; expand to the small neighbourhood communities and then to greater areas and finally to the state. Shun leader-worship. Let it be individual and community efforts, where everybody is a worker and none is privileged. Let us learn to express ourselves if anything wrong happens. Yes, we must at least learn to hate injustice and wrong acts even if we are unable to stop them. Watching injustice, bribery, highhandedness is as bad as doing it. Learn to stand against all odds in the society even if it means some discomfort. Indeed once it becomes a habit with us not to take injustice lying down, a clear message will go to the miscreants and law breakers. Such insane elements in the society will be forced to think before they act foolishly. This is the sign of live, alert and conscious societies. Yes, we need to play our roles in the society in a lawful manner without making ourselves seem like preachers on every issue.