Youth Developmnt And Environmental Impact.

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIROMENTAL IMPACT:
ISSUES AND PROBLEMS, BEING A PAPER PRESENTED BY DR. MARIO UMEGBOLU ON THE OCCASION OF THE CO- CREATORS UNIVERSE EXCURSION TO NIKE LAKE RESORT HOTEL ENUGU, ON SATURDAY 26TH JULY, 2008.

PREAMBLE
In preparing this paper, I had two constraints. One, the short notice I was given, heighten by the work load of my daily schedule. Hence, I endeavoured to present a treatise which exhibits a synthetic and summarized posture .two; this topic is a poignant and highly sensitive one which has very wide spectrum. This is so because in order to do justices to it, it must admit insight for relevant discipline with their unique jargons foreign to ordinary readers and listeners. However I labour to produced a paper devoid of many academic wrangling accessible and intelligible to all. Nevertheless, where understanding is still cloudy, I shall elucidate in the course of this paper’s presentation. But I add that in a paper of this sort which needs insight from philosophy, anthropology, psychology and essentially sociology, certain linguistic /technical usages

DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIROMENTAL IMPACT
To begin with, development and environmental impact are two concepts which reinforce the realities of two phenomena that provoked and engaged the thought of Early Greek thinkers such as Thales, heraclities, Cratylus, Parmenides, Zeno and Democritus. These phenomena are “change “and ‘permance’. In Aristotle and Thomas aqunias, we have the unmoved mover which some early thinkers mentioned above equate with water air, fire, etc logically we can relate to “change“and permanence’ while the environmental impact relate to the principle of cause and effect. Furthermore, development and environmental impact are poignant phenomena that are observable and experiential.
THE CONCEPT OF DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIROMENTAL IMPACT.
Development arose for the principle of progress change in nature and things. It presuppose the reality of the principle of potentiality-“ the act of becoming “.this innate


principle explain the natural changes observable, outside and within the body of all mundane realities. Conversely, environmental impact canvasses support for the principle with its attendant’s effects.

FURTHER INTRODUCTORY DEFINITIONS: GROWTH, DEVELOPMENT AND MATURATION.
The term growth employed here means the progressive increase and continuous advancement of the child from birth to maturity. It refers to continuous advancement of the bodily tissues, organs and structures.
The term development means the gradual and orderly unfolding of the characteristics of the successive stage of growth involved the emerging and the expanding of the capabilities of the individual to provide a greater facility in functioning. It means essential progress towards a goal. It involves changes from simplicity to complexity and implies an increasing progressive maturity of behavior as well as the organization and the personality and character.
Maturation designates the natural ripening or growing up process, the culmination of which is maturity. By maturation, psychologists mean the process
of attaining a level of development at which some specified cognitive function or types of behaviour ordinarily appears. Psychological maturity involves such maturation and response on the parts of the individual to situation or ways which are appropriate to his degree of development and which are likewise proportionate. According to Professor Anselem Uba, a professor of Psychotherapy of the University of Benin,” an organism plant itself through conception c** fertilization, it grow and developed into another stage, it matures at that particular stage. The various aspect of the process of growth, development and maturity are interrelated and interdependent. These processes are influence by the heredity and environment, and maybe accelerate or retarded on individual differences.



Since the year of a child’s birth to his maturity witness a remarkable series of change- social, physical, intellectual ,emotional and spiritual(moral)SPIES) it is evident that growth and development occur in all these areas. However, all these phases or level are interrelated, for the child grows, develop and matured as a whole, even though the rate and degree of development vary a great deal in difference children”.
Anthropologist and sociologist adjudge a youth to be between the age period of being a child and being fully grown (to adulthood). However, some psychologists desiring to be precise had endeavor to peg the youth age bracket to
Somewhere between the outset to adulthood down to that of adolescence. But this supposition has not a universal acceptance: hence some still peg the age bracket from fourth years down to adolescence. No matter how plausible this argument may seem, I think it is wisdom to follow the Aristotelians mean which simply put imply ‘following a middle course’. Hence I adjudge the age bracket of a youth to be between the ages when one is fully grown down to that stage of puberty which is the stage of change in the human body from childhood to the adult state in which it is possible to produce children. This affirmation however, does not a definitive posture in a controversial issue as this.
Having stated thus far, we aver that youth development, the coming or bringing gradually to a larger more complete, or more advanced stage of a youth, is a complex phenomenon. Development of a youth encompasses the optimal realization of his full potentials. These potentials are realizable when the various aspects of the youths are properly developed. These aspects are:

v The physical growth.
v The psychological growth.
v The social relationship balance.
v The economic growth.
v The emotional balance.
v And the spiritual growth.


These must be properly integrated for the optimal realization of youth development.
However, the above factors come under the influencing psychology placement and terminology of heredity and environment. Of these two,
Environment is considered as the over riding determinant and shaper of every human destiny including youth development.
What do we mean by environment? By environment, we mean the physical and the social condition in which people live, especially as they influence their feelings and development. The physical condition are: the geographical location made up of the vegetation- trees, grasses, soil, water, air, building /structures,
streams, rivers ocean, the food we eat etc. social condition refers to all agencies of social life which mould character, enforce perception ,(or outlook of life) such as the family, the school peer group, the mass media and the church. The aggregate impact of the above, spark off the accumulative consciousness of an individual, in
this case a youth. Again, it is from this agency of socialization that cultural orientation is formed and preserved.
Many anthropologist and sociologist have attended to accept the definition of culture given by Sir Edward Taylor in 1871. According to him culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge belief art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habit acquired by man as a member of society. Culture is every thing which is socially learned and shared by the members of a society. men inherit their habit and beliefs, their skills and knowledge : the acquired them during the course of their lives. Hence youth development is effected either for good or bad by these factors. Again, it is pertinent to state that culture is a part of the biological equipment (heredity): nevertheless, it is biological equipment of human being that make it possible for the existence of culture.
Culture which I term environment in action is deciding factors which hope the destiny of our youth’s development. This is understandable in view of psychological imperative, variable and maturation of our youth in development process. Environmental


has effect our youth’s development. Bad effect hinder proper development while sound environment promote proper growth(development ).there is no gain saying that our environment today is hostile to youth development .Nigerians unhealthy environment has produced such personality crises ridden youth who cannot be leaders of tomorrow. Because of the wide spectrum of this discourse, and time frame, permit me to limit our consideration to the issue of dress code with the hope it would help drive home our point.

THE MODERN DRESSING TREND AMONG OUR YOUTHS

For the time now, I have controlled my self not to sound religiously apologetic. This is because I have wanted this paper to remain liberate of religion bias and idiosyncrasies. Nevertheless there are certain phenomena whose silence would be more damaging than liberating. I think it is time we began to tell our youth that certain action and thought enslaves us rather than liberate us.
It true that some of my postures sometime have confused many to religion lining I belong, I think it is proper to use this opportunity to explain myself .i am a Christian and a student of a Christian mysticism. Having trained in philosophy and theology, my philosophic bent some time is more or less a reaction against religious sentimentalism, emotionalism and fundamentalism of our day, which are grossly anchored, in monumental aberration and fanaticism. I believe in God, his angle and his saints. I believe in all that make a Christian a true disciple of Jesus Christ.
Having said all these, I wish to continue by saying that man is enfleshed spirit, a tripartite being made up of the spirit, souls and body (confer Christian bible 2 Thessalonians) hence, whatever that affect any aspect of these his being consequently affect the others. What I am saying I’ m stating categoritically that man is not just a materially constitute being. Whatever that effect his b0ody has bearing on the welfare of hi soul and spirit and vice versa either for good or bad. Hence Man should be cautions of what he eats, wears and feeds his mind with etc.


In this regards, Nigerians youths should watch their dressing mode. This is my contention for now. They should know they came from themselves with strong cultural and social influences. Exposing themselves unguardedly to bizarre cultural influences of other nations would earn them personality crises, which in turn engenders personality malfunctioning and consequent self-alienation and spiritual damnation. No wonder any religion profession, which is not an irredeemable chaos.
Let’s make an instance the plating of hair and wearing of earrings by our male-youths. To some, it is a show of modernity and fashion. Nevertheless, a little story would help our analysis here. The above mode of dressing among others of their kind is traced to hip hop.
The term Hip hop has not always referred to music. It is actually a cultural movement that started among the African –Americans and the Latino communities in New York in the 1970’s. That movement initially comprised four elements: Emceeing, disk jockeying, graffiti art and break dancing. However, it is the emceeing, known these days as rapping, that has emerged dominant element of hip hop. In those days, the MCs, before they were rechristened rappers, spoke or chanted in a very rhythmic style, using such poetic techniques as assonance, alliteration, and rhyme to show case their artistic prowess. These rappers did their thing over backing beats and scratching on a turntable. The scratching bit was done by DJ on a turntable. At the initial stage of hip hop movement the DJ and the night’s form of music. And in a bid to get the spectators excited, the MC would show case his talent by speaking between songs, giving shout outs to members of the audience, making jokes, etc, all done in a rhythmic, rhyming style. That job of the MC later became more recognized, and the style was christened rapping. Even now, another name for the raping is MC and the gangster rapper is also known as thug. The man generally credited as the grandfather of hip hop is kool here, a popular DJ in the New York area in the 1970’s. He later got two MCs together, Coke La Rock and Clark Kent, and with the duo, here put together the first emcee group, known as Kool here and the Heruloids. Another DJ believed to have contributed a lot to the development


of hip hop was Grand master Flash and the Furious Five. In fact, the term Hip Hop, is believed to have been coined by a member of that group, one Keith Cowboy. In the late 1080s,a form of hip hop, known as gangsta (gangster) rap began to dominate the hip hop scene. Among the early travelers on this route is easy Es, Los Angeles based group, Niggaz with Attitude (NWA). Their 1988 hit album, “straight Qutta Compton which sold over 2.5 million copies became very controversial for its glorification of Sex, drugs and violence. A song in the album, entitled, “Fuchs That Police” even earned the group a strong worded protest letter from the FBI. By the time, the group broke up and is former members went solo, the term gangster rap had become entrenched in America’s included Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Snoop Doggy Doggy, Boogie down productions, Houston, Texas based geto Boys, Oakland based to short and many others. Eventually the voice that has been restrict to song began to spill over into real life, leading to beefing among different MCS, which culminated in the tragic murder of California rapper, tupac shakur in 1996, and that of his new York rival, Christopher Wallace (notorious B.I.G.) the following years. In American, score of hip hop artistes are still hot on the charts. Among these are nas P.diddy, Nelly, Jay Z, Eminem, 50 Cent, Kenya West, Ja Rule, Luda Chris, Fat Joe, T. Pain, LL Cool J, Cassidy, LII Wag ore, LiI Jon, The Game, Jadakiss, Missy Eliot, T.I., Bow Wow and many others. All these African Americans who are mostly from the ghettos, whose music characterized glorification of Sex, drugs and violence, according to authenticated investigations were the ones that introduced this such bizarre mode of dressing such as weird dresses, chains and canvasses, perforation of the two ears and wearing of female ear rings by men, plaiting of hair by men and shaving of obscence type of hair –cuts, as well as wearing certain of caps styles. Like I started earlier, our youths should be made to understand that every culture has always a spiritual connotation tone. It is also “adrem” (proper) to tell them that above Africa American cultural movements, which they are quickly copying, has direct influence over their spiritual bearing. It is indubitable that the above culture movement glorifies sex, drugs and violence. No wonder the average Nigerian Youth is addicted to sex, drugs and violence. It also good that in as much as we sympathize with the cultural movement of these African American because of our racial link, such sympathy should only be based on proper understanding not on copying and practicing. The average Africa man or women is soberly minded not hysterical. Hence any cultural influence which tends to tear our personality apart should be boldly resisted as indifference could lead to total personality disintegration which leads irredeemably to spiritual damnation with its attendant consequences, for man is not only flesh and blood but enfleshed spirit conditioned by his environment.