SIR: The last phase of the year 2018 saw Nigeria’s financial watchdog, Economic and Financial Crime Commission launch an unending war against the trend of cybercrime in the country. Many pro-Nigeria project elites are happy about this development and many online activists even joined the anti-graft agency to run series of prolonged online campaign against the financial anomaly Nigerians now see as a form of empowerment. As usual, Nigerians who benefit directly or indirectly from cyber fraud are up against EFCC and its allied campaigners with the opinion that the country need not fight “Yahoo boys” but should rather fight politicians who made the country what it is today. Those challenging EFCC to direct their energy towards the politicians are right and those who feel cyber criminals should be dealt with are not wrong either.
On a daily basis and at an exponential rate, crime is growing faster than the economy of Nigeria. Just as cattle rustling is dying, there is reverberation of herdsmen attack and killings among other vices across the regions that produce staple food for Nigerians. Kaduna, Katsina and Zamfara have been in the news for stories that make one ask series of questions that beg for answers. One of them is, “will Nigeria not be wiped out by communal violence?
According to the fact sheet released by the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), armed bandits killed 52 citizens in 2017, 288 citizens in 2018 and in the first three months of 2019, over 280 have been killed.
As at today, the unemployment rate in Nigeria stands at 23.1 percent while underemployment rate is at 16.6 percent. A recent World Bank forecast has it that the unemployment rate will hit a table of 33.5 percent by the year 2020. The above figures refer only to qualified citizens actively in search of jobs. It is believed that there are more persons who sit idle, engage in legal or illegal activities so as to take care of their daily needs.
As common to every other part of the country, the Federal Capital Territory experiences an exponential rise in the number of hoodlums and jobless youths walking its ever-busy streets every day. These jobless youths are in every junction in Abuja. They act as motor conductors at dawn, forcing drivers to pay them, they attempt to beat up any driver that refuse them and they turn to armed robbers, car snatchers and burglars at dusk. These jobless youths take all sorts of drugs with the aim of being granted strength to carry out stressful jobs which they will not be able to do when normal. The question that begs for an answer is, what are the people and the government doing to address this menace?
The 2019 Global Cannabis Report revealed that Nigeria is the highest in Africa in marijuana consumption with 20.8 million cannabis users. This statistics indicates that even as the country is faced with increasing unemployment, the youths have decided to remain relentless in drug abuse. The foregoing shows that with the continuous trend of insecurity, joblessness, drug abuse, suicide and cybercrime, the country might be sitting on a keg of gunpowder if appropriate measures are not put in place.
The learned among the people must tow the path of honour by taking charge of their own destiny. They must, among many other things, be at the forefront of orienting the vulnerable and constantly reminding the government of things that matter. The government must also know that governance is the business of the people and without the people, governance will be a venture without capital. In the words of the Jewish council for public affairs, “cooperative efforts among community groups, city, state and federal agencies, with adequate government funding, to create youth intervention programmes offering alternatives to violent activity” is the solution to the quagmire we have found ourselves. The state and the people must take action before it is too late.
- Hammed Jimoh,
Abuja.
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