ISSN: 2321-8819 (Online) 2 348-7186 (Print) Impact Factor: 1. 498 Vol. 6, Issue 5 , May, 2018 40 Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 6(5) May, 2018 The Effect of Youth Unemployment on Democratization Process in Nigeria Kabir Umar Musa 1 , Aminu Yusuf Dikko 2 1 Department of Political Science, Umar Musa Yar’adua University, Katsina Katsina State, Nigeria kabirbumarmusa@gmail.com/kabir.bumar@umyu.edu.ng 2 Department of Public Administration, Umar Musa Yar’adua University, Katsina Katsina State, Nigeria amynuyd@gmail.com ABSTRACT Democracy and unemployment among youth are two antithetical bed-fellows. Unemployment hinders the progress and development of democracy in any country, be it developed or a developing one. The young, vibrant and energetic are important resources that should not be left idle for a democratic experiment to thrive. Thus, the youth have been the bane of Nigeria’s democracy since inception in 1999. Hence, becomes a cog in the wheel of democratic processes where it manifests itself in a myriads of serious socio-economic and political crises such as pipeline vandalism, political thuggery, kidnappings, prostitution and insurgency to mention a few. It is against this background that, this paper attempts to look at youth unemployment in relation to Nigeria’s democracy by using conflict theory as a basis for explanation. However, it is suggested that reducing youth unemployment is critical to the growth and development of Nigeria’s democracy as well as its stability. KEYWORDS: Democracy, Employment, Nigeria, Unemployment,Youth. Introduction Youth are the greatest assets any nation can be proud of (Zango, 2015) and they play a significant role in a democratic experiment when they are fully positively and engaged. Thus, youth unemployment hinders the progress of and development of a nation as well as becoming a source of devastating social tension and conflict. The youth are young, energetic, vibrant and an important resource that should not be left idle especially in a democratic setting. As Zango (2015) succinctly observed, youth as a social category constitutes a large proportion of the Nigerian population, constituting 53,552,331 amounting to about 38.1%. According to the Nigerian Youth Policy, youth are defined to be a group of individuals aged between 15-35 years. In historical terms, the Nigerian unemployment problem as opined by Ojo (1998) emerged around 1960s, because it was virtually non-existent in the 1950s. This is for the fact that over-employment of 143,000 was made up of children below legal working age was recorded in the 1952/53 population census (Diejomah and Orimalade, 1971). According to the Central Bank of Nigeria (2003), the national unemployment rate rose from 4.3% in the 1970 to 6.4% in 1980. The high rate of unemployment observed in the 1980s was largely linked to the depression in the Nigerian economy during the late 70s. According to Ojo (1998) the 1976 unemployment rate of 4.3% was low, he ascribed to the oil boom of the decade. Secondly, aggregate as well as urban and rural unemployment rate were relatively high during second half of 1980. This was as result of worsening economic environment which followed the oil boom and the subsequent introduction of Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1986. Thirdly, unemployment rate have always been higher in urban areas due to rural urban migration. According to Labour Force Survey conducted by the Federal Office of Statistics in December 1997, Nigeria has a composite unemployment rate which stood at 3.2% compared with 3.4% in the corresponding period of 1996 (F.O.S, 2001). Similarly, the urban and rural unemployment rates declined from 6.1% and 2.8% in December 1996 to 6.0% and 2.6% in December 1997. The composite registered unemployment for December 1998 stood at 3.2% but declined to 3.1% in 1999, where as the urban unemployment rate in December 1998 was 4.9% but increased to 2.5% in December 1999. In December 2000, the composite unemployment rate increased to 4.7% similarly the urban and rural unemployment rates increased to 7.2% compared to the previous years. However, Nigerian unemployment rate increased to 23.9% in 2011 compared with 21.1% in 2010 (NBS, 2011). It is therefore interesting to note that the NBS (2011) reported that the rate of unemployment is higher in the urban areas with 26.6% as against that of rural areas which indicated only 17.1%. One of the causes of unemployment as argued by Fadayomi (1992) was the inability to develop and utilize the nation’s manpower resources effectively, especially in the rural sector. This however,