Cultural Diversity and Youth Leadership Development in Nigeria

Abstract

One of the important characteristics of culture is diversity. This makes every nation of the world a unique entity. Rather than a blessing, cultural diversity has become a tool of oppression, domination, nepotism, injustice, disparity and discrimination in the hands of political actors and influential citizens in Nigeria. In the fight against police brutality that gave birth to a dramatic event tagged “End Sars Protest” on 20th December 2020, Nigerian youths demonstrated unity in diversity. On the contrary, the same youths are major instruments of various secessionist movements and agitating groups such as Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Movement for The Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSON), The Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), and Yoruba Nation. What a paradoxical situation! Against this background, this study focused on youth’s awareness of Nigeria's cultural diversity and its implication for leadership development. The study explored social leadership development theory as a theoretical framework while adopting descriptive survey research design and structured questionnaires to gather information. The population for the study is comprised of the members of the Coalition of Nigerian Youth on Security and Safety Affairs (CONYSSA) alongside the National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN). As a result, the study adopted a purposive stratified random sampling method to select a specified number of respondents from each youth organisation within the coalition and National Youth Council of Nigeria. Then, the data collected were analysed by Microsoft Data Analysis Tool Pack and Integrated with Microsoft Excel for easy display and graphical illustration. From the findings, the study recommends that youth organisations in Nigeria should adopt a cultural approach to leadership development in their training schemes. Also, the government of the Nigerian public and private sectors should make a policy of cultural inclusion and create a sensitisation platform to educate people on the uniqueness of Nigeria's cultural diversity.