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| Photo: Rapport Naija |
By Nweke Prince
Unemployed youths are readily available for anti-social criminal activities that undermine the stability of society especially in the area of Internet usage, manipulations and hacking with illicit passwords. An unstable society increases the risk of the market.
However, addressing the youth and crime in Nigeria requires an integrated holistic approach.
Truly, shortcuts will not work. The World Bank 2008 report advocates a comprehensive model that caters for rural development, rural-urban migration, preparation of young people for the labour market and investments in agriculture.
Curbing youths’ anti-social criminal activities
- Parents should find means to occupy their children when they return from schools, are on vacations, recently graduated or have been unemployed for a year or so. Nothing is wrong in enlisting your child into your church band to learn some of the musical instruments. No knowledge is wasted. Look at it in another way; you are gaining both ways because you don’t have to pay for him or her to learn the musical instruments in your church.
- Our educational system should be complemented with vocational studies.
- Special programmes designed for low-skilled youth in vocational centres.
- Incentives should be provided to SMEs that promote student internships.
- Youths’ unemployment in Nigeria and Africa requires shared responsibilities to tackle it. It’s only when the government, at all levels, realised that challenges of unemployment in the country should be tackled jointly, that solution will begin to emerge.
- Private sectors should be encouraged to accept youths as trainees. The Sun newspaper used to do this. Many young graduates are given opportunities to prove themselves. They are paid stipends. A few months later, their pay pack would be jacked up.
- Community members should enlist services of youths in their vicinities into projects, where their efforts would be appreciated and paid for.
- Agriculture is a viable source of investments for young people if it is made attractive. There should be a swift transition from subsistence to commercialised farming
- Farm and non-farm activities should be better packaged to make them really attractive.
- There should also be adequate investment in rural education. This will boost rural opportunities and reduce rural-urban migration.
Benefits of curbing youths’ anti-social criminal activities
*No foreigner would want to visit a country being overrun by youths wielding weapons
* Business will thrive if foreigners are sure that their lives, businesses and property would be secured.
* Parents and members of the community will not be subject to panic attacks.
* Early curbing of youths anti-social criminal activities makes them to become responsible
* He/she becomes a shining example in the community, with younger youths seeing him/her as worthy to emulate.
Mr. Nweke Prince was born on the 10th of March, 1984 at Achara Ihechiowa, Eleoha Autonomous Community, Arochukwu Local Government of Abia State, Nigeria to the family of Deacon and Deaconess Okpe Nweke. Presently, Nweke is working as the Regional Coordinator of National Coalition of Nigerian Youth in South-East, Nigeria, and as a part-time Lecturer at the Centre for Pre-Degree and Diploma Studies, Kogi State University, Anyigba.
First Published 2017
