Introduction
Nigeria like most developing nations of the world is faced with myriad of problems and harsh realities which include poverty, unemployment, conflicts and diseases. These situations pose great challenges to the very existence of individuals in most developing nations thereby calling for the training of educated man and women who can function effectively in the society in which they live in. Available information by National Universities Commission (NUC) (2004) reiterate the massive unemployment of Nigerian universities graduates in the country. This problem is said to be traceable to the disequilibrium between labour market requirements and lack of essential employable skills by the graduates (Diejonah and Orimolade, 1991; Dabalen, Oni and Adekola, 2000). This obvious critical skill gaps inhibits the development of youths and the entire development of the nation.
The words youth and restiveness have gained notoriety in usage especially in the Nigerian context as related to matters of agitation by the youths in the Niger Delta region. With a region as rich in natural endowment that oils the wheels of Nigeria’s economy; the poser is, why are the youths in the region restive?.
The advanced learner’s dictionary defines a youth as “when a person is young, especially the time before a child becomes an adult”. This may connote looking at the bracket of between eighteen -twenty five years and young adults from twenty five-thirty five years. On the other hand, “restive” was defined as “unable to be still or quiet, difficult to control especially when one is not satisfied with something”
The above definitions show that youths have endowment of raw energy. They are always bubbling in spirit, with high hope, big dreams, aspirations and ideas of what their tomorrow will be. To achieving these, they must naturally not stay still or quiet; especially when they anticipate or see their future on a totally collapsing socio-economic landscape. They should work, if the basic needs of life must be met. Therefore, in this context, they would naturally be restive within an acceptable limit in a continuum, in order to lay a solid foundation for the realization of their tomorrow.
More than half of the Nigerian populations are under the age of 30 according to the National Population Commission (2001). Therefore it can be asserted that the economy of Nigeria is a youth economy. Expectedly, today’s youth will become in a short decade tomorrow’s parents, leaders, labour force and armies. However, the Nigerian youths are said to be confronted with poverty, unemployment, urbanization, lack of capacity and skills needed to move the economy forward. Poverty which is a force for HIV/AIDS is very common. This is because the youth faces unemployment and lack of necessary productive skills to keep body and soul together. This reality leaves them without any meaningful means of sustainable livelihood. To make ends meet, they simply indulge in prostitution and crime for both male and female.
These vices are perpetrated by a large congregation of youths because their welfare has been utterly poor no thanks to inadequate attention and meager investments on human capital development by the government.
Youth violence in Nigeria
Youth violence has reached unprecedented proportions in contemporary discourse on Nigeria’s emerging democracy. Beginning from May 29th 1999, when the country re-commenced democratic rule, Nigeria has recorded very bizarre experiences in the domain of violence committed by young people. These acts of violence embrace murder, religious uprisings, party clashes, cult clashes, shooting, stabbing, kidnapping for ransom, armed robbery, including armed bank robbery, theft, burglary, rape, rioting especially against government policies, vandalism, ethnic militancy and so on.
Omeje (2005) argues that in many international for a today, Nigeria is perceived as a conflict-prone society and the youths are at the heart of most violent conflicts in the country. Recent empirical studies suggest that the youths are prosecutors of 90-95% of violent conflicts in Nigeria. This is pretty similar to what obtains in most other conflict-ridden societies. What probably raises anxiety about the Nigerian situation is the sheer magnitude, complexity, frequency, ramifications and seeming intractability of most violent conflicts.
Every geo-political region of Nigeria is characterized by entrenched structures of violent conflicts, with the youths as the principal driving infrastructure. In the oil-producing region of the south-south, resource control and environmental conflicts waged by ethnic militias of the Niger Delta have become an endemic stigma on the oil-rich region and Nigeria in general. In the south-west, the youths are the principal protagonists of majority of the ethnic and communal violence that tend to be on the increase in the area in recent years. In the three geo-political zones of the old northern region, the enormous damage inflicted on different communities and peoples by the incessant outbreak of ethno-religious conflicts and disputes relating to land rights and the indigeneity problematique (community squabbles between “indigenes” and “settlers”) is common-knowledge. In the south-east, organized crime and political turbulence have compounded the problem of societal fragmentation and descent into lawlessness or criminal anarchy. Youth militias and community vigilantes have cashed in on the vacuum created by the dysfunction and legitimacy crisis of government’s law enforcement institutions and agencies to ostensibly substitute for the state’s function of law enforcement and crime control in a crude and jungle fashion.
On top of all these, there is the macro or nationwide problem of political violence, linked to electoral fraud, sponsorship and use of thuggery by many politicians and political parties, as well as the politicization of sensitive issues and primordial identities such as ethnic and religious identities.
Why do we have widespread and frequent violent conflicts in Nigeria? Many recent studies tend to associate most of the macro- and micro-level conflicts in Nigeria with the problem of poverty. This may seem an over-simplification. Researchers argue that poverty translates into conflict in Nigeria through at least four causal factors or processes, discussed below;
Staggering and growing level of youth unemployment, leading to hopelessness, restiveness and feelings of frustration, which often precipitates or fuels violent conflicts; high population growth rate amid unsatisfactory economic performance compounds the problem of youth unemployment in Nigeria. There is a markedly unfavourable imbalance between Nigeria’s population growth rate and economic performance. Expansion of the economy to create employment opportunities for young school leavers and graduates has been rather sluggish. This heightens the risk and incidents of anti-establishment protests and frustration-related violence. The frustration and vulnerability of the youths make it possible for them to be recruited, inspired or hired for violence with relative ease.
Dysfunctional structural divide and discrimination at various levels of state and society, which impacts adversely on issues such as employment, promotion, public appointments, as well as group and community relations and land rights, often linked to the problem of indigeneity; poverty creates resource scarcity and negative competition, thereby predisposing actors to the desperation of hiding under convenient structures and opportunism to out-compete and liquidate potential rivals. Most conflicts often described or disguised as ethnic, religious or protracted historical animosities come under this rubric.
Promotion of violence as an economic opportunity; In the midst of mass misery and poverty, violence is seen and promoted as an economic opportunity by many subalterns and jobless youths. This phenomenon resonates with the greed versus grievance theory of Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler (2002). Based on their empirical analysis of civil wars in many developing countries, Collier & Hoeffler have argued that the greed of predatory and militant groups considerably overrides grievance in accounting for the emergence, proliferation and prolongation of violent conflicts. Availability of, and dependence on primary commodity exports, the scholars argue, substantially increase the risk of conflicts. Whereas most extractive export commodities have high risk of precipitating conflicts, the presence of obstructable or non-lootable export commodities (e.g. oil resources) seems to have greater tendency to increase the duration and intensity of conflicts when compared to lootable commodities or conflict goods (e.g. diamond and other precious stones).
Institutional pressure on public agencies whose roles and functions should ideally contribute to conflict prevention and management such as the police and other law enforcement and adjudication agencies; too often, the activities and malpractices of these agencies cause and aggravate conflicts partly because most of their employees work under very difficult and precarious financial conditions. In addition, there are pervasive patterns of domestic and cultural violence in Nigeria, such as harmful traditional practices (e.g. female genital mutilation and infibulation, widowhood rites, early marriage, caste segregation and oppression, etc), and the inexorable clash between traditional institutions and forces of modernism, which impact adversely on children and youths; domestic and cultural violence in Nigeria are often reinforced by structures of poverty.
Beyond the poverty-linked typology, it is pertinent to remark that at the root of the too many violent conflicts in Nigeria is the high incidence of state failure. The state’s abdication of, or perhaps inability to meet its primary social obligations, notably development provisioning and maintenance of internal order, as well as its unconcealed appetite for misrule, basically epitomizes what many scholars have often conceptualized as state failure. It suffices to say that Nigeria is marked by an unacceptably high level of functional failure of the state linked to the correspondingly high level of political and legal impunity, which encourages large scale corruption and insensitivity of public functionaries to the plight of the populace. The high level of youth violence and restiveness, especially the organized activities of ethnic militias who increasingly challenge or attempt to usurp the authority and functions of the state, could be seen as a response to the problem of state failure. The proliferation of small arms and light weapons, itself an expression of state failure, basically aggravates the situation.
Other major causes of youth violence may include;
Social and moral decadence: Youth violence appears to be the symptoms of the social and moral decadence of the Nigerian society in general. This decay manifests itself in the form of various social vices and ills epitomized by corruption, indiscipline, moral laxity and many other ills in the society (Okeowo, 1994:10; Ifaturoti, 1994:155). Therefore, since youths in Nigeria, who do not exist in a vacuum, observe this unhealthy social environment and the breakdown in societal values and norms, it is from what they observe and the signals they perceive that they, in order to achieve what they perceive as societal goals, emulate the behaviour of the society. Thus, the society in this way can be seen as the source of violence, for the youths merely reflect societal behaviour. In a society where persons who have achieved success through corruption are lauded, the signal sent to the youths is that corruption is an acceptable means of achieving success (Ifaturoti, 1994: 155). This is of course reflected in the violent behaviour of youths.
Influence of peer group: Peer group pressure and the age factor play an important role in determining youth involvement in violence. The average age group of youth is between 15 and 25 years. Many youths of this age grade are at their most impressionistic and they tend to imitate easily. Thus, they are more easily manipulated and influenced by their peers, who encourage them to commit delinquent acts on the grounds that it enhances their status and commitment in the society (Tamuno, 1991:144).
Culture of drug abuse: The prevailing culture of drug abuse has in no small way contributed to the upsurge in youth violence. Hard drugs such as heroin, marijuana and cocaine are often found in the possession of youths. Violent clashes often occur under the influence of alcohol and other mind disturbing drugs. Ifaturoti (1994:156) attests to the fact that abuse of drugs, such as cocaine, and over-indulgence in alcoholic drinks, such as gin and whisky, alter the state of the user’s mind and predispose it to violence.
Role of mass media: The mass media has also contributed to the upsurge in youth violence in Nigeria. The importation of violent films, which are shown on television and the everyday brutalities of Nigerian life, such as cult clashes, assassination and public violence, written about by the media with all the gory details and photographs, merge the frontiers of fantasy with reality for youths. It is possible that many of these delinquent youths merely act out what they have seen on video or television.
Ethnic nationalism and the formation of ethnic militias: The desire to wrestle the power coupled with other considerations have led to increased ethnic nationalism among the minority ethnic groups, while the larger ethnic groups are equally strongly attached to their peculiar beliefs necessitating increased nationalism within them. Sometimes their activities are carried out in a manner that has led to violence. The cases of Odua Peoples Congress OPC (Yoruba) and Movement for the Advancement of Sovereign State of Biafra MASSOB (Igbo) represent a good example of this perspective, while various minority ethnic groups such as Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), Middle Belt Forum among others, have been challenging the activities of the dominant ethnic groups. These competitions have ended up in ethnic militant attacks and ethnic clashes. However, it has been revealed that the youths constitute the bulk of these ethnic militias (Akinboye, 2001:176).
Role of the Elites: The elites in Nigeria have promoted youth violence. They represent essentially capitalists who depend on the state machinery for survival (Joseph, 1999:16). They are also a major player in the ethnic game for exploitation and manipulation of non-elites, usually directed towards personal/elite groups interests, which mostly promotes division and hatred among people in pluralistic societies (Otite, 1990:210). These elites use ethnic and religious sentiment to achieve their political and socio-economic goals. For example, a Sokoto Prince Shehu Malami in his address to youth corpers posted to the state in 1986 publicly expressed that the Hausa race is superior to other ethnic groups in Nigeria (Kukah, 2002). The others too Yoruba and the Igbo, have the same belief. In many other instances, the elites often sponsor youths in ethno-religious, political and cult violence. Such situation sets an appalling role model for youths and increases their vulnerability to or penchant for violent crime.
Economic factor: According to Obateru (1994:132), poverty apparently accounts for the bulk of violence due to such problems as unemployment, inadequate housing, physical and social infrastructures. The current depression in the Nigerian economy must have worsened the situation of youths; this has rendered the youths idle and almost hopeless, hence they have become instruments of manipulation by the elites for ethno-religious and political insurrections.
Urban congestion: This has contributed to the promotion of youth violence in Nigeria, especially in the cities. A greater proportion of Nigerians live in the cities. The rapid rate of urban agglomeration was caused by the superior employment, education, health care and other attractions of the urban environment. Most of these urban migrants are youths (Ndegwa, 1992:92). Therefore, the increase in the rate of youth rural-urban drift complicates the problems of housing, employment and population in the cities. All these problems produce stresses and strains that can be later expressed in the form of riots, cult clashes, vandalism and so on. It is a truism that incidents of youth violence are not so common in the rural areas in Nigeria.
Family influence: Family influence plays an undeniable role in shaping the characters of youths. The quality of their family life is reflected in their behaviour. In families where violence is a way of life, a reflection of it is seen in the violent behaviour of the youth of the family (Ifaturoti, 1994:157). Elaborating on this fact, Renovize (1978), Oliver and Taylor (1971), Scott (1974), Levine (1975) observed that children living in violent homes are themselves more likely to become agents of violence as they grow up. These children naturally see violence as an instrument of inter-group relations
It is also possible for the frequently battered mother to transfer her suffering to her children in the form of harsh punishments for minor offences. Such children soon become resistant to even dangerous battering and gladly participate in street/public fight (Albert, 1994:71). They become threats to peace and harmony in the society as they are recruited into gangster organizations, especially if they are unrestricted by exposed to violent films. Moreover, because many parents do not pay enough attention to the children, youths disturbed by such family situation may indulge in delinquent acts as a way of either seeking the parents’ attention to rebelling against such parents (Ifaturoti, 1994:157).
Consequences of youth violence
Youth violence as abysmal as it may appear to be is not devoid of socio-economic and enduring consequences to both the nation and the youths themselves.
The World Health Organization in articulating the effects of violence and Health in its report of 2002, opined that the main victims of youth restiveness or violence, almost everywhere are themselves, adolescents and young adults. The resulting violence harms not only its victims but also their families. This summarizes the evil of “youth violence”, if not promptly addressed. They kill themselves for the benefit of political office holders and elites in the society who at the end of the day abandon them to leak their wounds. Other effects include:
Creation of unfriendly investment environment; it is in no doubt that youth violence could affect investment prospects of the country since one of the indices in investing in a country would be the guaranteed peace of the country. If a country is ravaged by violence it makes such a nation unattractive for investments both local and foreign. And violences by the youth, most especially in the Niger-delta region has greatly undermined investment opportunities in the South-south region.
Increased poverty; youth violence leads to destruction of lives and properties not just of government establishments but also o private individuals. This situation has greatly led to the impoverishment of such people affected by these crises.
Increased crime rate and insecurity; youth violence in time past, such as the electoral crises have greatly led to a high degree in crime rate. Other consequences of youth violence may include;
The erosion of values and traditions e.g. disrespect for elders and the traditional ethos.
• Collapse of communal life.
• Inter and intra ethnic clashes.
• Killing of youths, who are the main actors, increased level of orphans and drug addition.
• War.
Efforts by the government to tackle youth violence
Today the consequences of youth restiveness stare us in the face. The truth is that youth restiveness and social vices are devastating both to the individual and the society at large. In fact youth restiveness makes the youth to be disabled for their expected role as leaders of tomorrow. They destroy productive lives, and the future of the social fabrics of the society. The risk involved are too numerous to be taken for granted. It is therefore the responsibility of the Nigerian state and all stakeholders to look for ways of bringing this large army of unemployed youths into the main stream of society and making them economically and socially viable so that they can become creator of jobs and wealth for themselves and for others.
The Nigerian state has not been passive to the crisis particularly in the Niger Delta. Successive regimes have taken steps to address the crisis. However, the responses of the state and the oil companies to the agitation and demands of the oil producing communities have always ranged from double talk, unfulfilled promises and arm-twisting strategy (Ovwasa, 1999:93). State repression and violence have been a prominent strategy deployed mainly by military regimes in quelling the crisis in the region. Such repressive acts often involve the drafting of mobile police and the armed forces to the region, with the mandate to put such uprising under control to facilitate the smooth operations of the oil companies. Examples of state violent repression against oil communities include: Egbema crisis (1989-91); Oburu violence (1989); Umuchem
Massacre (1990); Bonny tragedy (1992); Egi-Obaji Mayhem (1994); Tai-Biara (Ogoni) Massacre (1994);Ubima tragedy (1995); Odi Massacre (1999) etc (Ekeng, 1996:140;Akinwumi, 2004:131; Ovwasa,1999:94; Raji, 1998:116).
The federal government apart from using force to quell the situation also responded to the demands of the people by setting up development commissions and boards. The peculiar development challenges in the Niger Delta however, were recognized well before political independence of Nigeria with the setting up of Wilikin Commission in 1958 to look into the problems of minorities. Based on the recommendations of the commission, the Niger Delta Development Board (NDDB) was set up in 1961 (ANEEJ, 2004:20).
However, the board failed to achieve its objectives before the outbreak of the Nigerian Civil war. Subsequent efforts at developing the Niger Delta include the establishment of the Niger Delta Basin and Rural Development Authority in 1976, the setting up of the Presidential Task Force with 1.5% from the Federation account allotted for the development of the region. Also, Oil Mineral Producing Area Development Commission (OMPADEC) was set up. All these never made any meaningful development impacts on the area; rather, they created avenues for corruption and personal enrichment for individuals and groups at the expense of the poverty stricken masses of the region. However, the recent granting of amnesty to Niger-delta militants still remains to be seen as a onerous action that would permanently end militia activities in the area.
Tackling youth violence in Nigeria: the way out
Since youth restiveness in Nigeria revolves around poverty, bad governance, insincerity, ineffective corporate community relationship, underdevelopment, environmental degradation among others, ameliorating it would have to entail capacity building for the youth. This will include implementation of community orientated developmental projects and participatory approach in resolving issues and problems among stakeholders in the region.
The federal government needs to go beyond putting in place palliative measures and constituting agencies or commissions. The development needs of the region can be met through planned intervention policies, programmes and projects which are true reflections of the desires and needs of the people. Particularly the restive youth should be empowered so as to make a decent living from their environment.
Our development as a nation does in deed lie in our ability to develop our human capital. Development of human capital represents a sustainable strategy for transforming Nigeria into a viable economy. Without education Nigeria would not attain global relevance neither would we be able to create a good society with informed citizens. Government should consider education as a social service which it must provide to all Nigerians.
Dignity of labour upon which the Nigerian was known has been replaced by the craze for easy money. At the same time Nigerians have lost their sense of freedom and the symbol of achievement became defined by the extent of thievery that an individual exhibited. Despite the seeming gloom we can take another chance to make right the colossal mistakes of the past. This can only be done through an understanding of the many growth opportunities that stare at us daily. Global economy trends present significant opportunities for Nigeria to grow out of the mono-culture economy that has arrested the development of the nation. To strategically take advantage of these growth opportunities we must begin to look beyond natural resources as the major drivers of growth. Nigeria’s ability to emerge as a global economic force lies in its capacity to take advantage of the growth opportunities in such areas as: business enterprises, services, entertainment, leadership, entrepreneurship, management, sports, economics and finance, and brand exports. However, these areas of growth opportunities are driven by knowledge, ideas and innovation. Our possession of natural capital must therefore be seen as important to the extent that it catalyzes the development of the human capital necessary to take advantage of these opportunities.
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