YOUTH DEVELOPMENT POLICIES IN NIGERIA: PROMISES, PROBLEMS, AND POSSIBILITIES

Abstract

In recent years, youth development has drawn substantial attention in research and spheres of governance. Although many problems such as youth unemployment, violence, corruption, and ethnoreligious crises, cyber fraud among others have combined to forge a problematic for youth development, to the point that the image of the Nigerian youth is battered, this paper challenges this notion of the negative view of youths in Nigeria. The paper attributes the various challenges of youth development in Nigeria to the paradox of the state and argues that the key problems lie in a wider national difficulty of development. By using descriptive methods, the paper argues that governance structure conditions youth development in several ways. The paper recommends that alternative approaches to youth development should be framed into policy to ensure that the potentials of youths are attained in Nigeria.