THE ROLE OF YOUTHS IN GOOD GOVERNANCE AND NATION BUILDING

          As far as a nation or state is concerned, the role of every citizens, be it infant, young and aged is important toward the country’s development but the role of the youths cannot be underestimated, be it positively or negatively, although a youth especially the vibrant one, has more positives to offer his country than the negatives. Statistics shows that the youths occupy almost sixty percent of the world’s population and can be very active in almost all sectors of a nation. Although, a young person between the ages of fifteen and thirty years may be a youth in some parts of the world, while the age ranges from eighteen to thirty-five years in some other countries including Nigeria as revealed in her constitution.

         

          In most countries of the world, many people believe that the youths are agents of riots and non-peaceful protests but I believe otherwise as I see youths as potential agents of change and development, especially when it comes to issues involving education, politics, awareness creation, sport, agriculture, entertainment and many others as these are some main activities that must be embraced when issues of nation building arises. “Youths constitute Nigeria’s only hope for a real future” as said by Olusegun Obasanjo.

          It is a well-known fact that sport is one of the most important factor of national development as it enhances national and international relationships and it is no gainsaying that no other set of people than the youths participate most actively when it comes to sport issues. Most countries of the world are well known for their uniqueness in some certain sports and only the youths have succeeded mostly in bringing these praises to their countries. Jamaica today became more famous due to Usain Bolt’s success as the world’s fastest man, Lionel Messi and Christiano Ronaldo has also brought success to Argentina and Portugal respectively being among the prominent footballers in the world. Anthony Joshua brought success to both Nigeria; his country and Britain as he represented her in boxing competitions and fought successfully for them. These people are youths and they have helped in making good names for their fatherland.

          “The youths of today, are the leaders of tomorrow.” As said by Nelson Mandela, but it is so unfortunate that Nigerian youths of nowadays have been seriously disengaged from participating in politics even though, no contemporary governance has been better than those of the past simply because the past governances were of the youths’, while today, grandfathers are the ones in charge of politics. Even some past Nigerian leaders were barely thirty years of age when the responsibilities of their fatherland was on them, yet, they shouldered it well. What is left for this set of youths presently is to contest in higher institution elections meanwhile they are the ones mainly in charge of gubernatorial, senatorial and presidential election due to the fact that Nigeria uses NYSC (National Youth Service Corp) members as vote attendants at polling units and young arm force members to monitor their activities.

          Another role that must not be left out is that of public enlightenment and advocacy as this includes seminars, rallies and some other activities usually organized by sets of youths or non-governmental organizations which are some of the ways of enlightening the mass against their ignorance and promoting love in a nation. In Nigeria, this earlier mentioned NYSC members often organizes seminars to enlighten other citizens on deadly diseases like HIV/AIDS, how one gets infected and how it is prevented, which I believe no other age can do this better. Impacting knowledge into the citizens’ life is more or less developing the nation. Even Martin Luther King Jr was a youth when he liberated the black race from the whites and made the whole world realize that a man should be judged by the content of his character ad not by the colour of his skin; this points to one clear fact: that youths are the only advocate of truth and justice.

          More so, the youths know what the people need and they have ways of satisfying their needs. Mark Zuckerberg is a youth who invented the Facebook and in the world today, Facebook has succeeded in making communication easier, better, faster and less expensive for her over one billion users, even government agents use Facebook.

          Furthermore, the role of youth in agriculture cannot be overlooked as well as that in the education sector. Agriculture and education status are some of the main boosters of a nation’s economy and it is an undisputable fact that youths participate most actively in these sectors especially in nations where they depend on agriculture as the only source of revenue.

          In conclusion, Youths can be very sensitive to certain issues which may ignite the act of protest and sometimes lead to riots and chaos, but any non-peaceful protest demonstrated by the youths is definitely to claim their right or that of the citizens as the government often turn deaf ears to peaceful protests. Also, the youths often get involved in murder most especially during election periods and the open secret is that they are being sponsored by aged politicians because of unemployment. This does not only characterize the aged politicians as hypocrites feigning democrats, but condemns their leaderships and I see a better when youths with visions will be given spaces in governance and will be encouraged towards making sacrifices for their nation. Old people fight for their families, youths fight for their people.

Written by Ajibade Quazeem A.