ABSTRACT

Leadership is the key to social upliftment, social stagnation and even social decay, but there is no such agreement as to which kind of leadership is most capable of meeting and enhancing national development. The ability of a leader to coordinate member’s behaviour in the pursuit of goals is referred to as leadership. George and et al (1990) defined leadership as a relationship in which one person accepts the responsibility for the fate of self and others in relation to achieving a task. The problem of our country is that of leadership. Successive government have already missed and lost, considering the unrelenting progression of corruption, bad governance and bad economic management. The consequence of bad governance and frustration impeded on the youth is observable in the increase proportion of Nigerian youths who try to see of salvation of foreign shoes.

The problem of unemployment has been considered as an underdevelopment problem. Youth unemployment is caused by the ruling elite who mismanaged the economy mostly through corrupt practices. Youth who constitutes a potent and latent human resourced of any country are not truly engaged in labour thereby causing insecurity to the nation. The aftermath of bad governance, frustration led the youth to seek greener pasture elsewhere. The research work exposed the leadership problem in the country, it exposes the internal dynamic of a corrupt leadership in the political economy. The main objectives of the study are to find out the problem of leadership that resulted in mass movement of youths to Europe due to corruption, bad governance, seek recommendation and solutions.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1      BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

In Nigeria, the quest for national development is always at the heart of the leaders and the led. Leadership is the process of influencing group activities towards attainment of goals. The quality of leadership in any given country has a direct influence on the development of that nation in terms of the standard of living, available infrastructures, and poverty, level on unemployment among others. According to World Bank Report (2006) a nation’s wealth is measured in terms of balance sheet which consists of three categories of capital. Natural assets, produced assets and intangible assets, which consists of human and institutional capabilities that measures society’s quality index.

Nigeria is ranked as the world’s largest producers of oil, but the leaders have not been able to manage the oil wealth for the benefit of average Nigerian. This is due to unrelenting progression of corruption, inefficient, bad government policies and incompetent decision making. Mass unemployment among the able bodied Nigerian youths to their influx to developed countries of the world in search of greener pasture. Lack of basic social amenities is also major cause for the influx, deficient infrastructure, inadequate health and educational system among others. Although the problems of unemployment is a general phenomenon depending however on the nature of the skill produced by the economy for its own use. The features of underdevelopment in the third world economies is lack of developed manpower required for the development of the industrial, technological and service sector. Where the high level manpower is available, they remain unemployed. A country with abundant natural resources and in dare need of high level human capital could allow massive exodus of her able bodied men and women to European countries in search of greener pasture.

Mass exodus of youth from Nigeria also be traced to the activities of the criminal agencies and cartels whose main business is to recruit young people to serve as either drug carries or in case of young females, to recruit them as prostitute. Thousands of female Nigerian teenager and youth found their ways to overseas through these channels, and their work has led to the tragic deaths of many promising Nigerian youths. Nigerian youth became even more desperate to take even more during chances to emigrate, the crossing to the notorious Sahara Desert on foot as well as the tragic risk of hiding oneself in a wheel of an aircraft just to get to Europe. The problem of national development had remain a hydra-headed monster looking for a messiah for help. Good governance is all that would be required to extract the best of this unique opportunity of abundant human and natural resources to establish sustained durable and diversified, economy for national development.

1.2      STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Rich countries are largely rich because they are well governed, while poor countries are largely poor because of bad governance. Good governance translates to progressive national development, and good infrastucr=tural facilities. Good governance implies that intangible assets of the nation are fully exploited to manage tangible assets. Since inefficiency, incompetence, corruption, bad management are rules of the day. It means that it will be difficult for Nigerian leaders proved incapable of turning the advantages of oil wealth.

The influxes of Nigerian youth to Europe and America in search of greener pastures are due to unemployment, insecurity, lack of economic opportunities, corruption and nepotism, which could betraced to bad leadership. The extent which bad leadership contribute to the influx of Nigerian youths to Europe and America is what this project intends to unravel.

1.3      OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The main objective of the study is to assess the problems of bad leadership on the influx of Nigerian youths to Europe and America and the extent which it has affected socio-economic development of the nation. The consequences of unemployment as a result of bad leadership. Specific objectives were follows:

1.     To identify major reasons for mass movement of youth to Europe

2.     To find out the influence of unemployment on the influx of Nigerian youths.

3.     To critically examine the relationship between the problems of leadership and unemployment problem in Nigeria.

4.     To provide plausible solutions that could minimize the influx of Nigeria youths to Europe and America in search of greener pasture.

5.     To ascertain the effects of leadership on national development in Nigeria.

1.4      HYPOTHESES OF THE STUDY

HYPOTHESIS I

Ho:     There is no significant relationship between unemployment and mass movement of the youth to European countries in search of greener pastures.

H1:      There is significant relationship between unemployment and mass movement of the youth to European countries in search of greener pastures.

HYPOTHESIS II

Ho:     There is no significant relationship between leadership problem and unemployment of the youth in Nigeria.

H1:      There is no significant relationship between leadership problem and unemployment of the youth in Nigeria.

HYPOTHESIS III

Ho:     There is no significant relationship between quality of leaders and emigration of youths to European countries

H1:      There is significant relationship between quality of leaders and emigration of youths to European countries

1.5      SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study is significant in many ways. It tries to determine the cause, effect and consequences of unemployment, shed light on some of the problems of leadership and expose the leaders inability to tackle unemployment and find solutions. It tries to determine the structure and consequence of unemployment and mass movement of youth to Europe. Nigerian leaders have the problem of effectively transforming natural capital aimed at developing the economy, provide adequate infrastructures, empowering the society through the provision of good employment opportunities and other national development indices. Oil which is a natural capital has increased greed and corruption to the point of strongly eroding personal. Ethical and social values, if effective transformation had taken place oil would have been playing a smaller role in the economy and a number of economy sectors would have emerged and Nigeria would have been able to diversify the economy.

The study of this nature becomes imperative in that it will serve as an eye opener to the leaders who would be able to ascertain the significance of good and quality leadership, and the study will also have the potential of serving as a guide to researchers in working on the areas of deficiencies of leaders in Nigeria in order to improve on leadership with a view to having a sustainable national development.

It will also be useful to policy makers in the areas of improving the political, socio-economic status of Nigerian society and bring under control youth movement from Nigeria. Young women stand the chance of befitting a great deal since they constitute the bulk of victims of human trafficking. The leadership will know which part of the population is highly affected, youth, which is not acceptable to national growth.

1.6      SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Movement of Nigerian youths to develop countries of the world. The bulk of the affected areas are Edo and Delta States, to some extent East and Western States. 70% are from Edo State, but the study concentrate on Lagos. The North has insignificant number. The movement cut across religion, tribe, sex and different educational background, mostly undergraduates, dropped outs and sometimes graduates. Basically, the study is limited to youth seeking greener pasture in European countries, Spain, Italy, France to mentioned a few.

1.7      DEFINITION OF TERMS

Various terms will be defined and explained to enable us understand the phenomenon under investigation.

LEADERSHIP – The closet to a census in the definition of the concept is that, it is a social influence process. It is defined as the process of influencing group activities towards the accomplishment of goals in a given situation. (Harsey and Blanchard 1977) while (Griffin 1984) defined leadership as the ability to influence others.

EMPLOYMENT – A concept of which labour is engaged in production i.e. a situation where all eligible citizens are working either for themselves or for an organisation on full or part time to earn a living or wages and salary.

UNEMPLOYMENT – Some authorities have stressed not working and seeking to work and others like Sen (1988) recognized aspect of underutilization of labour. It is a situation where some human factor of production is idle, i.e. where all those eligible to work are not able to find job. There are different types of unemployment, structural, seasonal, voluntary, fictional, casual, disguised and cyclical unemployment. Cyclical unemployment is the one that is most concern for the purpose of this study. That is unemployment due to depression or recession in the economy due to bad leadership.

ECONOMIC GROWTH – refers to the entire productive and distribute system of the state. In an economy, you are either on production or distributive or both. The unemployed is not contributing to the production or distribution of goods and services. He is dependent consumer.

DEPORTEE – A person who is sent back to his country of origin from another country for some reason.

MOVEMENT – For the purpose of this study, means traveling or migration from Nigeria to Europe.

YOUTH – Able bodied (male & female) traveling to abroad for greener pasture

1.8      METHODOLOGY

Refers to the process and approach in data gathering and analysis. The use of questionnaires in gathering data will be used. In formation from journal, survey research and relevant literature review will be used. Gathering data from the field which is a form of descriptive research.

1.9      LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

Problem may be encountered in answers by the respondents. Problem of getting unemployed who are willing and also those that were sent back. Data on theses are not available among those who are traveling out of the country from January to June, 2008