Who is a youth?
A person, who has reached puberty, progressing towards adulthood.
What is crime?
An action or negligence that is deemed injurious to the public welfare or morals or to the interests of the state and that is legally prohibited. An act that is morally, socially and legally wrong.
What does ‘youths in crime’ mean?
Youngsters, who get involved in activities that is injurious to them, their family and society.
Crime among youths cuts across many boundaries; it has no boundary, colour, gender, ethnicity, religion or social stratification.
The changing world of youths, crime and its effect on society is a matter that should be of importance to us as students, parents and society.
Crime is dynamic, ever changing, thus many hands are needed to render assistance in checking it before it swallows us. Everyone’s hands and brains are needed.
The Tree called crime
Crime is like a tree, it has many branches. Each of this branch has power to sprout fruits, but these fruits will never be beneficial to any youngster if he or she suckles them. In fact, if taken, it will be discovered to be a bitter pill that will cause acute indigestion.
What are those branches of crime?
- *Cultism
- Cyber fraud (Yahooyahoo)
*Street fights
* Teenage rape
* Teenage prostitution
* Armed robbery
* Murder
* Webcam porn
* Human trafficking
We cannot pretend that youths involvement in crime doesn’t concerns us as parents and society. The world indeed is a global village; a stone thrown into the market square, can hit anyone.
Our security agencies can’t do it alone.
What I’m today right now, on this blog, is my contribution towards checking activities of youths who get themselves involved in crime, or at least ensuring they didn’t join crime.
What is your own contribution?
We know that most people believed that ways of checking crime is to arrest, which is actually the reactive method. But today, we seek to use the proactive and preventive method in checking crime, especially cultism.
Cultism appears to be overwhelming our society; even security agents seem to be at their wit ends. Catching our younger generation before they take to further crime today is our watchword.
Cultism: Youths and the need for new narratives
What is cultism: Simply put, secret gatherings, with single agenda and interest.
Who is a cultist: A person, who gets involves in practice/activities of cultism.
Cultism, which hitherto is believed and known for long to belong to the domain of university campuses, restricted to undergraduates, has now sneaked out of the campuses.
Today, cultism and cultists have penetrated our primary and secondary schools and our communities.
Worse, it’s even now more pronounced among primary schools, with children less than 10 and 11years of age getting recruited. It has also taken hold of uneducated children often found in our communities.
Youths, who dropped out of schools for myriad reasons, and those who couldn’t even afford the chance of being educated are now lured into cultism.
It may shock you to know that crime is interwoven, interlinked and interfaced. Girls are now among cultists.
These young girls are often defiled and raped. They become ‘lovers’ to different members of the gang with one being her ‘husband.’
Thus begins the girl’s life of teenage prostitution; used to being sexually active and exploited at a young age, a girl wouldn’t find sex sacred as she grows into adulthood.
The effect is that she wouldn’t see anything wrong in initiating younger girls into prostitution. Crime is a vicious circle.
A young girl that does not see sex as sacred, will very likely be trafficked into sexual slavery. She may contract HIV, STD or become a prostitute. She could die.
How do cultists operate?
They are always in groups, they engage in street fights, they are often armed with dangerous weapons, they form gangs in communities, they kill, they maimed. They leave sorrow, tears and blood after operation.
Why do youths join cultism
Quest for respect, to belong, bowing to intimidation, lure of money, bowing to bullying, bowing to threats, fashion, among others.
How do youths join cultism
Oath, torture, allegiance, murder, invitations to birthday parties
Why cultism thrives?
Youths are not doing enough of speaking out against it. Youths need to become more actively involved in their stance against cultism.
Poor parental care: Many parents are not aware of what is happening right under their noses.
They are not paying enough attention to their children. Broken homes can contribute to the thrive of cultism in society.
A child of a broken home, especially with both parents getting married to partners, may find the child being caught in the middle.
He or she, needing to feel loved and wanted, may decides to join bad friends. These friends may introduce to cultism.
No good or well-equipped correctional facilities in the country. Many youths go to prison to become hardened, form gangs, than to be reformed or corrected.
Youths’ role in checking cultism
As youths, you all need to help in checking the continual spiraling of cultism in Nigeria. If we all start preaching against crime, especially cultism, no doubt we shall make an impact.
The message against youths in crime needs to be louder in traditional and social media outlets.
As youths, we need to begin to change the mental attitude of other youths towards crime, but cultism in particular. Some youths see cultism as fashionable, but they fail to reflect on the danger and its effect on their future.
Cultism can never take a youth to any good place in life, rather, it will hinder your success and make responsible people that should assist and guide you, to keep away from you.
The future of a cultist may come with untimely death, imprisonment, permanent scars, and (loss of eye, arms or legs). Whatever we can make of our youths, will resonates on what our future world will be.
Cultism is not a fashion; it’s a physical, social, and psychological form of death sentences.
Juliana Francis Pass Forward Theory
To achieve our cause in the fight against cultism, we shall deploy the use of ‘Juliana Francis Pass Forward Theory.’
The theory is simple and straight forward. As you read my take on cultism and hear me speak to you about it, also do the same. Ensure that the person you spoke to, passes the same message to another.
The message is youths against crime in Nigeria. Speak against it, kick against it. Don’t support or be sucked into it.
We can further achieve our pass forward theory through emails, helplines, information lines, electronic, blogs, newsletters and traditional newsletters.
Believe you are an ambassador of change; a superstar in your school. Speak out at your worship centres, homes, schools and communities.
Effects and consequences of cultism on society and youths
Cultism and cultist groups are created to provide a false sense of security. Nevertheless, the consequences of joining such groups are dire.
According to several media reports, hundreds, if not thousands of youths had been killed while involved in cult related activities.
People who join cult groups alienate themselves from parents, relatives, friends and other loved ones. They become slaves to cults. They are killed or end up being killed. They are can be marred. They may end up mad due to smoking and ingesting of hard drugs.
First Published 2017
