White-collar Foundamentalism Interrogating Youth Religiosity on Nigerian University Campuses.

Abstract

Home historically to a politically engaged youth sector; Nigeria has, over the past two decades, withnessed a growing incidence of religious extremism involving educated youth, especially within university campuses. For all its important ramifications, and despite the continued infusin of social and political activity in the country by religious impulses, this phenomenon has yet to receive a systematic or coherent treatment in the relevant literature. This paper aims to locate youthful angst displayed by Nigerian university students within the context of postcolonial anomie and the attendant immiseration of civil society. Youth religious extemism on Nigerian campuses reflects both young people's frustration with national processes, and their perceived alienation form modernity's 'cosmopolitant conversation'.