Youth restiveness in the Niger Delta, unemployment and the rampaging HIV/AIDS are some of the challenges that the youth and government in Nigeria are faced with. Festus Ojudun probes whether the current administration has the will to take the youth out of the quagmire.

Governments in Nigeria have failed the youth” summarises the feelings of disenchantment that Bamigbola Gbenga, a 26-year-old unemployed graduate based in Lagos, has about government and youth development activities in the country. He, alongside many other youths, believes that successive governments have toyed with the youth question.

Since independence, Nigeria hardly paid adequate attention to youth development. Just as she appeared unserious in other sectors, efforts to improve on youth activities were relegated to the background; there were no holistic and pro-youth development agenda. Youth development policies dwindled since successive governments regarded the youth question as less germane to national development.

From 1999, it took former President Olusegun Obasanjo seven and a half years to realise the necessity of a separate youth development ministry to meet the challenges of youth development in the new millennium. The ministry was only created January last year after series of agitations from members of the National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) and other stakeholders who felt government’s insensitivity to youth development had retarded growth in the sector. Hitherto, it had been a government department under the Ministry of Sports, often lacking funds and the attention it deserved.

By last May, the youth crisis in the country had reached a crescendo, more like a time-bomb that exploded even when government claimed it was tackling the youth development question. Unemployment, youth involvement in crime, restiveness in the Niger Delta, HIV/AIDS and a disconnect between the youth and the state are commonplace in the country.

Tackling the youth question raises some theoretical considerations. Global perspectives on the youth development discourse have identified two key spheres: youth development infrastructure and youth work. The former involves the foundations and facilities that must be put in place before aspirations of the youth can be met while the latter is the actual activity of developing the youth to ensure balanced transition into adulthood. The two broad spheres are complimentary and mutually beneficial, but youth development infrastructure is a prerequisite for actual youth work. It comprises the institutional and structural frameworks that must be in place before youth work can be successful. This will be elaborated presently.

The preceding provides a clear context for appraising President Umaru Yar’Adua and his government’s youth policies. At the inauguration of his cabinet in late July last year, the president had charged ministers to be altruistic, innovative and diligent in their assignments. He had appointed a former member of the National Assembly, Senator Akinlabi Olasunkanmi, to direct the affairs of the youth ministry which his predecessor created only few months earlier. Nigerian Tribune investigations revealed that Yar’Adua and his youth minister had to choose between handling the two spheres of youth development at the same time and taking one (the foundation, youth development infrastructure) first. The fact is that without having youth development infrastructure in place, actual youth work cannot succeed. But focusing on youth development infrastructure, as the situation seems to demand, means youth work would suffer for the period reformations in youth development infrastructure would last. Such is the challenge that the youth ministry has faced in the last six months. Though the period may be short to assess government’s performance in the youth sector, such an assessment could help put the issue at stake in perspective.

“As at now, the issue of infrastructure has been taken care of. The National Youth Policy, which had been due for review since 2006, has been reviewed”, said Special Assistant (SA) to youth minister, Mr. Olawale Rasheed, while speaking with the Nigerian Tribune. He explained that the ministry had partnered with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to review the policy, adding that it had engaged the services of consultants to produce a new draft youth policy that would be presented to Nigerians across the six geopolitical zones. The document is to be presented to the National Council on Youth Development (NCYD) during its meeting in Calabar, Cross River State, next month and later to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) for ratification.
“The new policy comprehensively addresses the challenges of Youth Development in

Nigeria, taking into consideration international best practices and peculiar needs of youths in Nigeria,” said a ministry official who did not want his name in print. He believes the draft policy, when ratified, is the “ticket for holistic development of the youth”.

Nigerian Tribune learnt that the youth ministry did not have adequate data on youths. This statistical information is a major component of youth development infrastructure that is necessary for the success of youth work. “When the minister was sworn in, we realised that the ministry did not have a data bank on which to base its plans, so we commenced two projects – an annual Youth Development Report and the Youth Development Index (YDI). The honourable minister had written to all state governors to submit a 2007 report on what they have done and what they intend to do in the youth sector. Youth related agencies and NGOs were also requested to forward same reports to the ministry. 

“As at last December, close to 30 states had submitted their reports. Related agencies like the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Citizenship and Leadership Development Centre, Abuja, National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) and the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) have also done the same,” said Mr. Rasheed.

The SA further explained that the Youth Development Report would document what different levels of government were doing to develop the youth, adding the maiden edition of the report would be released later this month.

The YDI, on its part, would provide indicators on the status of youths in Nigeria, especially about education, unemployment and health related indices. Malaysia, Brazil, countries in North America and Western Europe already have this index, but Nigeria would be the “first country in Africa to embark on a nationwide research to get facts that would form the basis for the index”, argued the SA. He said a team of seven professors and a host of researchers were involved in the project and that the first YDI would be published in June.

“This will enable government to compare its performance in youth development from one year to the other,” he added. The Youth Development Report and YDI should provide the statistical benchmarks needed to develop the youth.

Investigations revealed that the question of youth council as a youth development infrastructure has also received attention in the last six months. Nigerian Tribune learnt from the NYCN headquarters in Abuja and the youth ministry that the NYCN, the umbrella body of youth organisations in Nigeria established in 1964, had been crisis-ridden for quite a while. The body had been factionalised along lines that tilted more on the political turf.

Its structures at the federal and state levels were weak and it was distant from the Nigerian youth. The investigations further revealed that the NYCN constitution had not been reviewed since 1964 (44 years ago) and that the council had slumbered into the chasm. It was discovered that the council’s 44-year-old constitution is set for review under a new leadership recently elected at the NYCN 2008 Congress.

Mr. Ben Duntoye, National President of the NYCN, confirmed that hitherto the council had been in crisis but that the emergence of a new leadership had put the council back on track. He commended the youth minister for his unflinching support to the council and pledged his commitment to ensuring that the council was more pro-youth. “We are happy that the minister has restored dignity to the council. We were one of those that advocated for a separate ministry for youth development and today that ministry has made us proud,” he said. The United Nations (UN) charter mandates every country to have a national youth council to spearhead youth development and serve as a convergence point for youth opinion and activities.

As part of building youth development infrastructure, the ministry is relying on information and communication to provide a platform to reconnect disconnected youths to government. Further investigations revealed that before now the ministry had no website but that a new one has been hoisted. It will have sub links to an Online Entrepreneurship Centre for employment, business training and job creation; an Online Youth Parliament for youth contributions to public policies; an Online Referral Centre for discussions on HIV/AIDS, drug addiction and guiding and counselling; and a Youth Blog Link to facilitate communication through the Internet.

Worldwide, youth centres are known to provide avenues for all-round youth development. The youth ministry is to expand youth development infrastructure through creation of more youth centres and completion of existing ones. “Before President Yar’Adua was sworn in, the Owode Youth Centre, Ogun State, and the one in Shere Hills, Jos, Plateau State, started about 35 years ago, had been abandoned. This administration completed and commissioned the Owode youth centre. The Shere Hills centre is to be commissioned in March,” said Mr. Rasheed. He added that six additional youth centres were being proposed. They are to be located in Abia, Bayelsa, Borno, Cross River, Katsina and Osun states. He said two were being proposed for the Niger Delta to stem the high rate of youth restiveness in the area. State governments have also been advised to build youth centres, with Delta and Bayelsa states promising to build three and six respectively. The same is equally being pushed at the local government level, just as advocacy for the establishment of a National Youth Development Fund (NYDF), to be patterned after the Education Tax Fund (ETF), is also in the offing.

Youth work, the second key sphere of youth development, involves actual activities aimed at empowering the youth. The main challenge facing the youth is economic. Many graduates are unemployed and many more are under-employed. Economic desperation has driven many youths into criminal activities, while many others do not have access to post-secondary education.

If the Federal Government can tackle the economic question, more than 80 per cent of the challenges facing the youth would have been resolved. This is the main headache of President Yar’Adua and his minister, Senator Olasunkanmi. In Nigeria, youth work implies getting jobs for the jobless, assisting out-of-school youths and rehabilitating youths who out of desperation have fallen into crime and drug addiction.

With these, one can safely say that the question of infrastructure is tackled provided the ideas and policies highlighted above are implemented to the letter. But do the ordinary youth on the streets understand these ideas? Do they feel that these policies will improve their lives? Nigerian Tribune went to town to seek the opinion of youths.

Kingsley Eleagu, an unemployed graduate based in Lagos, was quick to say that he was fed up with government insensitivity to the plight of the youth. “We are tired of listening to promises because we have heard policies that raised our hopes in the past only to dash them in the end. What I need is a good job or finance to start my own business and not what government is doing,” he said. He lamented that after he graduated with a good degree two years ago he had not got a job. He added that instead of government wasting time on the so-called ‘policies’ it should employ pragmatic approaches to the youth development question.

Faniyi Tolulope, an employee of one of the telecommunications companies in the country and former President of Igbogbo Students’ Union (ISU), believed some of the ideas were indeed necessary for youth development, but was keen on the government ensuring adequate implementation of the proposed projects. “Something that has been neglected for many years cannot be resuscitated in one day, but the government must show that it

is committed to youth development. All the promises must be fulfilled,” he said.
Vice President, North Central NYCN, Prince Musa Abutu, said that he was aware of government policies and that the policies could help transform youth activities in the country. “The long neglect in the youth sector has finally come to an end with Yar’Adua on board, but the government must not disappoint the youth this time round,” he said.

Youth Development Minister, Olasunkanmi, at a recent forum, said: “the Youth Development Centres will answer questions about youth unemployment. An aggressive nationwide development of youth centres is a key strategy. There is no doubt that our youths are unhappy but the good news is that things are changing for the better.” He stated that the ministry is considering revolutionary steps such as formalisation of vocational training, as practised in India. Hence, the ministry is also partnering with two international organisations for entrepreneurship development. The ministry intends to use the expertise of the Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), an America-based entrepreneurship development NGO; and the Students for the Advancement of Global Enterprise (SAGE), another NGO in the USA, to launch a nationwide entrepreneurship training programme for youths.

As things are, the Federal Government may have laid the foundation for youth development infrastructure, but how do these ideas and policies diffuse to the ordinary youth on the streets and reflect in actual youth work? The challenge before government is to ensure that its good intentions are implemented and that they get to the grass roots. It must begin to implement the initiated programmes so that actual youth work will begin in earnest and the average youth will then feel its impact.