RELEGATION OF THE YOUTH TO THE MARGINS OF PUBLIC SERVICE: AN ENERVATING FEATURE OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN SOCIETIES

Abstract

The youth constitute greater percentage of the efficient workforce of virtually every human society. Indeed, healthy, educated, and gainfully employed youth are the drivers of national development. The African tradition has a socio-cultural framework that favours gerontocracy, as an ideal system of leadership. It also advances an epistemological orientation that associates wisdom with advancement in age. This system, as examined in this discourse, has unfavourable implications for development in Africa. The association of wisdom with age often culminates in the relegation of the youth to the margins of public service. Thus, the youth play second fiddle to the elders whose wise counsels are often presumed to be absolute ideals. This paper contends that the African socio-political climate is not altogether youth-friendly as far as leadership is concerned. Denying young people of the opportunity of utilizing their characteristic vigour for the society’s development amounts to stifling useful ideas, occasions energy leakage and loss, as well as effects unwarranted wastage of invaluable human resources. As a panacea to this limitation, the paper recommends a radical re-orientation in Africa’s perspective on leadership. The paper ultimately defends the thesis that a conscious and habitual integration of the youth’s potentials into the mainstream of African leadership framework would make for efficiency and effectiveness, thereby fostering sustainable development in contemporary African societies.