Youth Participation and Nation-Building in Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria’s persistent challenges in nation-building are assessed with a spotlight on the role of the youths. Despite the rich ethnic tapestry of the polity, systemic issues like fragmentation and mistrust continually challenge the nation-building agenda. The research adopts a qualitative analysis via the descriptive research design and employs secondary data obtained from different literature. The political socialisation theory, which observes how young people are incorporated into a society's political culture, is the theoretical perspective adopted. The findings reveal that youth participation has been present since independence; however, there is a gap between youth engagement efforts made by the state and actual youth engagement. The study also finds that social media can be leveraged as a tool to engage the youths actively. Thus, recommendations set forth include the development of various national strategies such as youth education and dialogue to incorporate the youths into nation-building endeavours.