By Bode Olagoke Abuja
A former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Atthairu Jega, has called on the federal government to “urgently review the National Youths Policy and include programmes targeted at satisfying the needs and aspirations of the youth.” According to him, Nigeria needs to adopt a positive youth development approach which recognises youth as active participants in societal development and not merely as passive recipients of doled out goods and services. Speaking at this year’s convocation lecture of the Nigerian Nile University, at weekend, in Abuja, on “Youth and the Future of Nigeria,” Jega said the country had failed to harness the demographic asset. He said political leaders constructed an elitist narrative of being concerned with the aff airs of the youth, “but make no substantive eff ort in policies or programmes to address their plight.” “Accordingly, the National Youth Policy should be urgently reviewed, enhanced and imbued with serious programmes targeted at satisfying the needs and aspirations of the youth, with their active participation.
“Eff ort should be targeted at the systematic removal all barriers to eff ective youth participation in the Nigerian political economy,” he said. Continuing, he said: “Government should create and with time institutionalise a Nigerian Youth Interactive Forum, which meets annually or biennially. Leading public offi cials to meet representatives of the youth; enable voices of the youth to fi nd expression, to become in the center of governance and to drive change; to become a sustainable participation forum for the youth in national aff airs; to replace or incorporate cultural festivals, which presently are jamborees merely focusing on dances, singing, etc., consuming humongous amounts of public resources, with no substantive value-addition.” Jega noted that the nation’s youth “face tremendous challenges, of poverty, diseases such as STDs and HIV/AIDs, unemployment and marginalisation and exclusion in the political economy.”
