The Legal and Governance Officer of the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), Mr. Kojo Asante has expressed concern over what he said is the lack of commitment on the part of government to institute a national youth policy over the years. “What pains me is that even 13 years ago we were talking about a national youth policy, which is still in a draft form. So when politicians talk about commitment to the youth, what is really their orientation? You can’t talk about the largest production sector of your economy when you know you haven’t articulated any vision as to how you are going to involve them. “Really, I am at a loss when they talk about ‘we are going to energize the youth, we are going to create 500,000 jobs’. What do you want the youth to do, how do you want to build them up to be involved in the processes of governance so that it can take you to the promise land?” Speaking on Citi FM on Thursday, Mr. Asante called for an immediate national conference after the December elections to tackle issues confronting the youth presently. He said since the youth are the future of the nation, they need to be positioned well to become productive in future. He gave a startling revelation about the number of youth in prison. “About 81.6% of inmates in our prisons are also between the same ages of about 18 to 35 and that could turn some very dangerous consequences for us in the future. This is one of the compelling reasons why I think that we really should be looking at how we can position young people who are our present and future to be able to live on.” He cautioned politicians on how they package their messages to the youth. The youth, he said, have little interest in what happened in the past, but are more interested in what is happening today and how their predicaments would be solved. He said the youth constitute a large part of the voting population and have the power to decide the coming elections; since they also form the majority of floating voters. Judging from previous elections and the current situation on the ground, Mr. Asante hinted that there could be a possible run-off in the 2008 elections. He also said politics is not a preserve of adults alone, and therefore urged the youth to develop interest in politics and governance. Often times, he said, the youth refrain from taking part in decisions that affect them, but later turn to complain when things are not going on as they wished. This attitude has created rooms for adults to relegate them to the background when dealing with national issues. He said “Young people basically leave politics to older people to decide and when the impact of that decision is coming on them they start to complain.” He also asked politicians not to capitalize on the fragility of the youth to exploit them. Rather, he appealed to politicians to come up with policies that will shape their future. Mr. Asante expressed disappointment over the inability of successive governments to institute a long term policy to address problems related to the youth. Mr. Seth Oteng, Executive Director of Youth Bridge Foundation said although the youth could be useful to national development, improper management of their effectiveness could be dangerous to the state. He gave a scenario of the damage caused by a recent violence in Kenya to justify his point. In the said hostility, about 77% of the people who committed the assault were youth between the ages of 14 and 29, and about $1.3 billion was lost to the state as a result of the conflict. Mr. Oteng called on the government to address the issue of uneven development across the country, which accounted for rural-urban migration, to curb the issue of over population in the cities and unemployment. Professor Ebo Quainoo, Professor of Political Science, East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, USA, deplored the exploitative attitude of politicians towards the youth. “Politicians are only interested in the youth when they would get their votes. Unfortunately in Ghana and in developing countries, politicians across board have manipulated the energies of the youth for negative adventures.” He emphasized the need to re-orient the youth to focus their interest on the December elections. The youth have also been told to hold politicians to their promises. Prof. Quainoo cautioned politicians not to look at their parochial interest of getting power, but also think of moulding the youth for the future. Author: Isaac Yeboah