On 17 December 1999, the United
Nations General Assembly – in its Resolution 54/120 – endorsed the
recommendation made by the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth that
12 August should be declared “International Youth Day”.
International Youth Day 2017 is
dedicated to celebrating young people’s contributions to conflict prevention
and transformation as well as inclusion, social justice, and sustainable peace.
We want to quickly seize the opportunity here to celebrate the youths for their
participation and their invaluable efforts in the civilian Joint Task Force
(JTF) in the North East.
Based
on dictionary definition, youth refers to the period between childhood and
adult age. It also refers to a young person who falls within that time period. According to the United Nations, “youth
is best understood as a period of transition from the dependence of childhood
to adulthood’s independence.” The United Nations, for statistical purposes,
defines as youth those persons between the ages of 15 and 24 without prejudice to
other definitions by Member States.
It should be noted that there is no
one-size-fits-all definition of youth especially in terms of age
classification. While The Commonwealth sees youth as young
people aged 15-29, African Union, through the African Youth Charter (2006) defines
youth as
any individual between 15-35 years of age.
Recognizing that youth, as a concept
varies from culture to culture and from society to society, the ECOWAS Youth Policy
(2009) considers youth as comprising all young males and females aged from 15
to 35 years. In defining youth, Nigeria's National Youth Policy 2009 states that, “in line with the conditions and realities
on ground especially historical and contemporary socio-economic and political conditions,
and for the purpose of execution of the current National Youth Policy, the youth shall comprise of all males and females aged 18
– 35 years, who are citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” According to
the Report of the 2012 National Baseline Youth Survey conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics in collaboration with the
Federal Ministry of Youth Development, Nigeria has 52,183,686 population of youths aged 18 – 35 years.
Faced with a number
of challenges including unemployment / under-employment, ethnic / religious fanaticism,
political manipulation of youths and youth organizations, poor education, cultism,
as well as sex and substance abuse, Nigerian youths remain a vulnerable group.
We need to do more to
address the un-met needs and aspirations of youths, mainstream youth-related
issues into our development agenda, expand the democratic space to bring more youths
into governance, and tap into their youthful vibrancy, drive for innovation,
and their other comparative advantages. It is pleasing to note the recent success
recorded by youths who are the main proponents of the #NotTooYoungToRun campaign. It actually makes sense that if someone is not too young to vote,
he/she should equally not be too young to run for elective posts.
We need to sound a
note of caution that, even though all of us as stakeholders can – and must – contribute
towards ensuring good leadership and good governance, only a few will be in
positions of power and authority at a given point in time. The teeming youths
should therefore have it at the back of their minds that, while consolidating
their #nottooyoungtorun campaign, they
should also be “Not too young to run a business”, “Not too young to be an
entrepreneur”, “Not too young to get skills”, “Not too young to excel”, “Not
too young to shun corruption and immoral behaviour”, and “Not too young to
resist ethnic, religious, gender, national, racial and other discriminations”. For those who have
decided to pursue the “Not too young to run” initiative, we advise that they
should also be “Not too young to read public documents to acquire knowledge of public affairs” Knowledge is power, and my people – including the youths – must not
perish for lack of knowledge. Go for some knowledge here: Nigerian Documents | Document Categories
Happy International Youth Day! Enjoy!
