As we celebrate school (University) resumption and the beginning of a new academic year/semester here in London, hundreds of thousands of our colleagues in Nigeria unfortunately are bawling over the lugubrious impact of the ASUU- National Strike. While here in the west, Education of the Youth is the most vital investment of the government after the Iraq war, Nigeria has continued to deprive its future – The Youth – good education, forgetting that all who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youths.

Western discourses of the African youth are focused on the youth burge and the negative consequences the youth are posing to the continent. The challenge for them, just like with the population question, is how to contain the youth. On the part of the African political leadership there is utter hopelessness with the youth, hence the claim of a “lost generation”. The youth have been debased and criminalized; they have been portrayed as a menace and social nuisance to society.