Criminality among youths and its impact on the image of Nigeria

Sayo Aluko (Friday, April 13, 2012)
(A paper written&presented by Sayo Aluko on behalf of his Platoon @ d NYSC Orientation Camp,Kaiama,Bayelsa State)

Nigeria is the most-populous black nation in the world, and for its significant youth population, decades of under-investment in the social sector and the failure of employment generation programmes have combined to create a climate of unrest. The volatile mix of rampant poverty, inflation and joblessness has led to a situation where criminality very often seems to be the only means of survival. Of the many pressing challenges facing Nigeria today, youth unrest and violent crime are arguably the most distressing. Over the years, this has been highlighted in cyber crime, sex-related crimes, drug trafficking,kidnapping and armed robbery; the most recent being of the Boko Haram hellish menace, all of which have played major roles in putting a derogatory stamp on our country's image.

What are the Basic Causes and Challenges
1. Moribund Educational modules which is abetting Youths' crimes: Mismanagement and recurring strikes in the Nigerian educational sector have institutionalized a legacy of intellectual poverty and criminality among youth. Unchecked persistent strikes have led to progressive deterioration in infrastructure and academic quality, leading to criminal activities among the youth, which correlates with criminal and mendicant (area-boyism) behaviour among youth.

2. Unemployment plus Hostile Economic and Infrastructural niches: We all are familiar with the clichéd statement which states that "An idle hand, is the Devil's workshop"; that is what serves as d bane of the Nigerian youth. As it is now,even though credible data is lacking, local media reports indicate that half of the Nigerian population of 167 million are youths, 85% of whom are unemployed. Decades of economic stagnation and poverty have conspired to drive a large chunk among the Nigerian Youth to crime and violence from early on. And's there is little doubt that the country's long-term goals are irrevocably tied to its ability to reclaim this youth force from unrest and mobilise its economic potential.
These unpalatable indices are the banal obstacles facing Nigerians in general, and its youth in particular. Business opportunities are, moreover, not equitably distributed over rural and urban areas, a condition that hexes development of new ventures and expansion of existing ones. A practically non-existent rail network and the extremely poor condition of roads have combined to further hamper the country's business environment and investment climate.
Electricity is another area of concern in this context. Power availability is far short of demand, to say the least, and supply is largely erratic even in relatively developed urban areas. Most businesses are forced to run on expensive generators, while frequent outages leave many other facing break-ins and other criminal activities.

3. From a non-sentimental purview, it can be inferred that most of the religion-induced or culturally-biased bouts of youths' criminality and violence, mostly typified by acts of insurgent sects, cultism, and militant thuggery,e.g, Boko Haram, Buccaneers, MEND,etc, are mere outcomes of both the hijacking and exploitation of the idleness,the poignant exuberance and the religious ignorance cum fanaticism that speckles the robe of the Nigerian youth. This is as worse as the fact that the government has been known to grease these violent acts by using its youths to both procure and fester post and pre-electoral violence.

4. High Entrepreneurial Mortality: Entrepreneurship development has also been hamstrung by a slew of financial factors, poor access to credit for small businesses being the most prominent. The absence of credit and tax regimes sympathetic to entrepreneurial realities is a core area of concern, together with the predominance of lending through debt over equity. Low standards of education, restricted access to vocational training programmes, limited use of technology and the high cost of doing business in Nigeria are additional aspects requiring resolution for the country to achieve rapid entrepreneurial growth.

What are the probable solutions?

Reversing this trend calls for a fundamental shift in official outlook and vigorous changes in four key areas:

1. Training and Education: Since the spine of youths' criminality has been shown be fundamental ignorance, this article recommends that for the nation’s education to have an impact in reducing crime there is need to inject vibrancy into education in order to encourage and enhance educational quality/quantity.

From the perspective of entrepreneurial development and youth mobilisation, the importance of wholesome and practical education simply cannot be overstated. The Nigerian government appears to understand the magnitude of its importance, and successive regimes have undertaken sweeping policy decisions in this direction. Before leaving office in 2007, president Obsanjo made entrepreneurial education mandatory for college students of all disciplines across Nigeria. The current dispensation under President Jonathan continues to place great importance on vocational training and skills development programmes for the youth by way of equipping them to meet business challenges. However, such measures need to be standardized across the education system and quality-upgraded to meet current realities.

2. Government Programmes: As of 1999, the federal government has initiated several landmark measures to foster enterprise development, including setting up of the National Directorate of Employment, the Medium Enterprises Development Agency and the Bank of Industry. However, more effective steps are called for in order to increase youth participation in developmental schemes and in shaping social consensus on important macroeconomic issues. Encouraging youth leadership in both the public and private sectors through developmental and aid-providing government programmes, remains crucial to leveraging their full economic potential.

3. Financial Restructuring: Access to capital being one of the biggest setbacks to promoting youth entrepreneurialism, Nigeria needs to focus on devising and implementing radical policy changes in the financial sector. Banks and lending institutions require outlook-reorientation and sensitising to small business requirements as part of effort to boost financial access to emerging enterprises.

4. Rural Development (for productivity): Recruits for youthful criminality and unrest are mostly from the rural areas in the country. The uncouth penchant to get rich/influential by rushing to the urban areas and also the poverty/idleness are the two major baits that violence perpetrators use to waylay and eventually recruit youths domiciled in the rural areas. Hence, special attention must be given to develop business opportunities in rural areas, which significantly lag behind the urban regions,both qualitatively and quantitatively. Sufficient care must be given to enforce policies that favour localised and socially relevant enterprise across the varied Nigerian landscape.

Conclusively,the problem of youth unrest in Africa's second largest economy cannot be viewed in isolation from its larger socio-economic challenges. Nigeria must acknowledge its historic failure in meeting the aspiration of its youth, and come up with creative solutions that sufficiently harness their energies for durable and inclusive prosperity.