IS UNEMPLOYMENT REALLY THE CAUSE OF ARMED-ROBBERY IN NIGERIA?

First and foremost, it is envisaged that if more employment avenue are provided for the teeming population of our youths by both the public and private sectors of our economy, the problem of armed robbery is likely to be minimized in our society. When most of the youth are employed and adequately paid, they would be discouraged from engaging in armed robbery. That unemployment must be vigorously tackled, and be seen as indeed, a most threatening factor, which motivates the drive to armed robbery Nigeria today.

In other words, attempt should be made to refrain from interpreting unemployment as mere spurious, and an excusable factor amongst the offenders. While unemployment is, and should not be condonable as an excuse for committing armed robbery in particular, it must at the same time not be dismissed as mere excusable.

Against this backdrop, the nation’s educational policy should be re-oriented to provide empowering skills to the youth. Majority of them who are disproportionately in armed robbery have had a taste of the formal western education system, and have come into reality with the many goodies it promises.

Lack of employment causes a traumatic depression to many individuals and groups, and this acute amongst these active young ones. It breeds instant hatred, jealousy, and inferiority complex as it leads to the disruption of relationships—within the family and at peer level.

In contemporary Nigeria, many families’ responsibilities are almost invariably vested on these youth who play diverse roles as sons, uncles, cousins, family prides and representatives at community level and so on. Moreover the youth should be publicly educated and encouraged to be self employed by granting loans, and other available resources which will serve as a capital base for them. In so doing, most youths would be self-employed even if he or she did is not employed in the public sector's white-collar job.

Nigeria belong to us all, we all have the responsibility to make it great.

I am a Social Reformer and I am leading the campaign to

Opeyemi Oladimeji