“This world demands the quality of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind, temper of the will, a quality of imagination, predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite for adventure over love of ease – Robert Kennedy”

The word “youth” has be something so explicit or obvious to every human being on earth.

Who is a Youth?

According to Oxford advanced learners dictionary, youth is defined as the time when a person is young especially the time before child becomes adult.

Also according to Webster’s Dictionary “the time in life when one is young; especially;

• The period between childhood and maturity
• The early period of existence

Also the age in which a person is considered as “youth” and eligible for special treatment under the law and through out society varies around the world

Secondly, the science of psychology describes youth as the period of later adolescence and early adulthood, at least between the ages of 10 to 30; various countries and some of the scholars have their own definition of youth.

The United Nations general assembly has since accepted youth as people who are in the age bracket of 15 – 25 years.

In some African countries like Nigeria, the draft youth policy puts youth in the age of 6 – 30 years.

The commonwealth youth programme states “youth” as young people between the 15-29 years of age.

The government of Tasmanian define “youth” as a people between the ages of 20 – 25 years of age.

According to National highway traffic safety commission a “youth” is defined a person who is under 21 years of age.

“This world demand the quality of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind, temper of the will, a quality of imagination, predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite for adventure over love of ease – Robert Kennedy”

“Youth is an alternative word of the scientifically oriented adolescence and the common terms of teen or teenage. Another common title for youth is a young person or young people.”

Around the world. The terms “youth”, adolescence, teenager and young person are interchanged, often meaning the same thing, occasionally differentiated. Youth generally refers to the time of life that is neither childhood nor adulthood, but rather somewhere in-between.

Youth also identifies a particular mindset of the attitude, as in “he is very youthful” the term youth is also related to being young.

Some authors defined youth not by the year they have lived; they say “youth” is not a time of life.

For them is a state of mind, it is not a matter of ripe checks, red lips and supple knees” yet they argue that, it is a temper of will a quality of imagination, a vigour of emotions. It is a freshness of the deep things in life.

My own contribution, I will say youth is the time one takes all the training he or she needs ad be able to take responsibilities for him or herself.

According to Dr. Ubah H. in his writings about youth formation, he said “in any given society, the youth accounts for a greater part of the population they are also valuable asset by the way of the key roles they play in the economic and social development of their communities or countries”. In addition, it is obvious that youth regenerate society. There is an axiom that the future of any nation depends on her youth, but now in some countries the reverse is the case.

Lack of discipline, a cancerous worm that is eating deep into the fabric of our nation, has been an obstacle of the youths in civilization. It is quite regrettable to note that the youth of today have misused and betrayed the confidence imposed on them. Looking across the world, we can see how the youths are channeling their human resources to all forms of evil, ritual killing, armed robbery ,prostitution, kidnapping, caution, drug trafficking, sexual immoralities and other forms of violence which mislead them towards achieving their goals.

The rate at which the morals and spiritual standard of youths decline is quite alarming, no one wants to work, some no longer adhere the instructions given to the by their teachers or parents.

In all these immoral acts, one may ask, why our youth our youth devilishly derail from the true part of life. In past years, “when we talk about youth we talk about Nation”. But in the modern era, nothing except immorality can be said to them. Exposure to media services at a tender ages contributes to the corruption of youth results to been instruments of violence to the society in the way to practice what they get from media. Those in prostitution, resulted to been affected by HIV virus and then the question left for is where does our hope lies? Where are our leaders of tomorrow?

When a pillar that holds a nation is in crisis her citizen equally finds them in deeper crisis.-Rev Fr J.N. Ekennia

This is cause by our parents who are suppose to be guidance in the up bringing of children are neglecting their parental responsibility by leaving their children grow out of control.

Therefore government should create more avenues, policies and eradicate their problems of idleness and been conscious of spending. Also the government have to be organizing seminars, workshops to the youth in various Universities where there are more of youths today. A sincere effort by parents, churches, government, NGO’s can go a long way to establish a genuine and lasting foundation of morality for the youth of today who are also the leaders of tomorrow. “shame is an ornament of youth a disgrace to old -Aristotle the philosopher”. So all hands should be on deck to eradicate all these immoralities facing our youths in all forms which made them to indulged in everything they do in life, so that it cannot affect other upcoming especially the little once among them.