Youth’s Role In Nation Building (1)

Former Senate President, Senator David Mark (middle), addressing youths of Odugbeho village, during his assessment visit to affected communities recently attacked by herdsmen in Agatu, Benue State.

The role of  the youth in
nation-building in recent times has generated serious discussions.
Youth power is a recognised force in the world today. The youth are filled with tremendous energy and towering ambitions. They can be utilized as a constructive and as a destructive force by any nation.
During the eighties, the youth made itself prominent in many socialist countries in Europe and China. Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, witnessed a powerful demonstration.
Thousands of Chinese youths sacrified their lives in order to bring democracy in that autocratic state. Wherever there are riots in any country, political forces use the youth power to promote their interest. During the Mandal Commission in India, thousands of college students agitated in the streets of the cities. Many of them committed self-immolation.
In Nigeria, the leadership cadre is filled with aged politicians who think nation building is their exclusive reserve and as such youths should not be given a chance. Perhaps, their stand explains why though youths are said to be leaders of  tomorrow that tomorrow never comes.
This is the unfortunate mindset that has informed pattern of successive government in Nigeria. This cliche in some way has sedated almost all youths and created in them a sense of reluctance in participating and taking up roles and responsibilities that will help in nation-building.
Rather than explore the opportunities for securing lives, facing the challenges of a rapidly changing world, and thinking about the future of their nation, it is quite disappointing that the majority of our youths know more of how to showcase anti-social behaviours. It is shocking to realize that the constructive attitudes of youths in traditional society of Nigeria have gone with the wind.
Interestingly, governments at all levels of governance, parents, guardians and all the stakeholders in our youth developmental processes are finally waking up to the realities that the surprisingly negative attitudes of our youths can be traced to the fact that we have tens of millions of unemployed Nigerian youths, and millions others living in abject poverty, even having seen the four walls of universities.
From the above situation, there have been considerable efforts around the world aimed at addressing the ever-increasing needs of the youth population. This ranges from empowerment to calls for appropriate programmes, services and advocacy efforts to harness and enhance the youth capacities and capabilities for nation-building. This therefore shows the importance of youth participation in nation-building.
The significance of youth participation in nation-building is of relevance considering their  vast majority in the world’s population. According to Udensi, Daasi, Emah and Zukbee (2013), the numerical strength of the youth folk is an unlimited avenue to which the socio-economic development of any nation can strive and national development improved. Hence, if the youths are sidelined in the articulation of any nation-building programme, experts have argued, it will be impossible to reach the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets, particularly on extreme poverty and hunger (MDG 1), child mortality (MDG 4), maternal health (MDG 5) and environmental sustainability (MDG 7).
With this knowledge, youths are better able to make choices that support the pursuit of educational goals and the development of life skills necessary for national and local leadership positions. Ignoring maximum commitment and engagement of youth in national development today will have dire global consequences for decades.
There exist mixed feelings among researchers, countries, cultures, and development experts including governments on the actual delimitation of who a youth is. Thus, this has generated controversies on a unified definition of youth. The difficulty to bring out a clear-cut definition for youth prompted Uhuwuangho and Oghator (2013) to posit that:
“The growing commitment to the involvement of the youth in global development process is a clear recognition of their potentials as change agents within the civil society. This awareness has attracted scholarly attention in an attempt to clarify and articulate a conceptual category for .youth. In most literatures, scholars have often employed the criterion of age to define youth. However, sociological studies have shown that this criterion is fluid and therefore vary from one society to another.”
The foregoing raises definitional issues and implications for the meaning of youth to include biological, sociological and cultural criterion. The presiding paragraph will carry out definitional x-ray on the issues and implications in this regard.
Youths, according to the dictionary, is seen as “the state or time of being young -and women”.
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Current English, 2001: Hornsby (2007) defined youth as the time of life when a person is young especially the time before a child becomes an adult. It is also used to mean the quality or state of being young. MacMillan English Dictionary (2007) adds that youth refers to the time in peoples’ life when they are young or looking young.
Generally, the term youth refers to a time of life that is neither childhood nor adulthood.
The National Youth Policy (2010) in its position on the meaning of youth posited that “the way in which a nation defines its youth is related to the object conditions and realities that exist on ground, especially historical and contemporary socio-economic and political issues that need to be addressed”. For the purpose of this write-up we will exploit the age bracket of 18 – 35 to look at the meaning of youth, with emphasis that “this category represents the most active, most volatile, and yet most vulnerable segment of the population, socio-economically and in other respects (National Youth Policy, 2001)”.
Angulu-San considered persons within the age range of 6-36 years as youth. Other scholars employed the age bracket of 15-30 to define youth. It is also helpful to add that progressive-mindedness is one of the defining characteristics of youth. Therefore, the current thinking is that people beyond the age of 36 who share the ideals of a progressive society are also considered as being youthful. Whatever the age limit, youths are men and women considered to be young, energetic, vibrant and resourceful, who are often engaged in social enterprises that requires physical strength and mental capacity (Suleiman, 2006).
The task of nation-building has been argued to be historical contingent due to the fact that the process is inextricably tied to the formation, growth and demise of nations as well as factors that influence the process (Oghi & Ajayi, 2011). The attempt at integrating the diverse elements in a country  in order to promote a sense of belonging among people is also part of nation-building process (Wallenstein, 1961). Nation building therefore involves not only the implementation of political and economic policies that will improve the lives of the citizenry, but also a recognition of values and other aspects of the state that would act as a national catalyst to bind the people’s culture, which is the totality of a people’s way of life, is crucial to nation-building because its non-recognition could promote fissiparous tendencies among the citizenry. (Elaigwu; 1983)? According to Wikipedia (2013), “Nation-building refers to the process of constructing or structuring a national identity using the power of the state.”
However, Irene (1999) defined nation-building as “the process whereby people transfer their commitment and loyalty from smaller tribes, villages, or petty principality to the larger central political system”. Nation-building can also be defined as a process of bringing diverse groups together to develop their common land.
This process as Erne and Onyishi (2014) noted, aims at the unification of the people within the state so that it remains politically stable and viable in the long run. Nation-building can involve the use of propaganda or major infrastructure development to foster social harmony and economic growth. It is also the development of behaviours, values, language, institutions, and physical structures that elucidate history and culture, concretize and protect the present, and insure the future identity and independence of a nation. Nation-building is viewed as purposeful interventions in the affairs of a nation- state for the purpose of changing the state’s method of governance. It includes deliberate efforts to promote institutions which will provide for a people’s enhanced economic well-being and social equity.
Rohi is a member of the Nigerian Youth Volunteers, Rivers State.
To be continued.

Prince Rohi