POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND DEMOCRATIC PROCESS IN NIGERIA: THE ROLE OF THE YOUTHS
This paper presentation, political violence and democratic process in Nigeria (the role of the youths), was written to examine the role of the Nigerian youths' involvement in political crises or violence in the Nigerian democratic process. It was observed that the Nigerian youths are actively involved in political violence and democratic process in Nigerian politics. In this paper presentation, an attempt was made to discuss some behaviour that can be termed political violence such as revolution, military coup d'état, riot, party clashes, political assassination, political thuggery, terrorism, looting, Election malpractices, such as rigging, stealing of ballot boxes, arson, kidnapping of political candidate and corruption. The paper also discussed and analyzed the causes and consequences of political crisis with some models such as psychological model, structural or systemic model, and inter group conflict model. It was discovered that that political violence indulged in by the youths in the democratic process in Nigeria lead to political instability, withdrawal of foreign aid and investment, scaring foreign investors from investing in Nigeria, isolation and sanction by international community, destruction of lives and property, stagnation of nation's economy and poverty and breakdown of law and order.(under development). The paper concluded with the recommendation that government should create jobs for the youths so as to prevent them from being used as the instrument to carry out political violence.
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