Nurturing Youths Entrepreneurial Mindset and National Development: A Critical Analysis (Published)
This paper Nurturing Youths Entrepreneurial Mindset and National Development: A Critical Analysis interrogates and explores the role of youths in national development. The problem that spurs this investigation is evidenced in high level of unemployment among Nigerian youths. Many Nigerian graduates are roaming the streets looking for paid jobs while host of other youths engage in various criminal activities and odd jobs as a means of livelihood. These includes: kidnapping, internet fraud, robbery, prostitution, etc. The paper observed that Nigerian youths pay little or no attention to entrepreneurship, thereby leaving them without employment. The paper identified the development of entrepreneur culture, science of self-realization, discover the needs of your environment, confront the obstacle etc as some of the factors that will enable youths to direct their mindset toward entrepreneurship. It identified the benefits of youth entrepreneur to include both personal and public benefit. The paper therefore recommends that Nigerian youths should shun all social vices such as kidnapping, armed robbery, prostitution, internet fraud/ cyber crime etc. Nigerian youths should be nurtured, mentored and guided towards possessing adequate entrepreneurial mindset. The government should as a matter of important provide the enabling environment for business start-ups so that the youths will be economically engage, thereby developing themselves and the society in which they live.
Keywords: Entrepreneur, National Development, Youth
Demographic Structure and Dynamics of Manufacturing Output in Nigeria (Published)
The manufacturing sector is ubiquitously seen as the pathway to economic growth and development due to its driving potentials. Modern theories present population increase in an optimistic light as opposed to the doomsday assertion of Malthus. It is in light of this foregoing that this study examines the impact of population growth on the manufacturing sector output in Nigeria for the stretch of 1981 to 2018. The population growth was ventilated into male population growth, female population growth and youth population to help examine which category of population spur or inhibit the growth of the manufacturing sector output. The test for long-run association between manufacturing output ratio to GDP and population components was done using the normalized co-integration technique. In addition, the study used the error correction mechanism (ECM) to examine the short run dynamics of the variables and the speed at which past year’s disequilibrium will be corrected in the current period. The normalized co-integration showed a positive and significant relationship between male population growth and manufacturing sector contribution to GDP, while a negative and significant long run relationship was found between female population growth, youth population growth and manufacturing sector contribution to GDP respectively. The study hence recommended an aggressive entrepreneurial awareness programmes and starter packs to help draw in the active and vibrant youth population and a parity or non-dichotomy in employment, pay and other employment benefits between male and female employees.
Keywords: Nigeria, Youth, female population growth, male population growth, manufacturing output, population growth
READING YOUTH-: VIOLENCE AND IDEOLOGICAL PROPAGANDA IN SELECTED SOUTHERN NIGERIAN PLAYS (Published)
The media’s capacity to manipulate information and create stereotypes can negatively affect young audiences who emulate its aggressive behavioral models. The rate of violence and aggression among Niger Delta youths, who form the core of the militant resistance in the area, can be attributed to the influence of socio-cultural factors of corruption, cultural ideologies and narrative myths created by the media. This essay examines the manner certain plays written by Southern Nigerian playwrights serve as media extensions by acting as if they are creative depictions of the marginalized Delta youth’s social reality while in actuality these works mediate personal objectives that further engender youth violence. The work analyzes the generative ability of the narrative as an action creating new identities and stereotypes. Youth violence, while being anti-social in nature, appears justified in the reference plays which have psychotic young heroes that glamorize violent agitation as an existentialist strategy. The essay surmises that propagandist literature can become operational when the author deliberately gives prominence to certain details while relegating other necessary facts that shape perception and identity
Keywords: Militancy, Niger-Delta, Priming, Propaganda, Violence, Youth