Curbing Insecurity In Nigeria Through Youths Employment And Skills Acquisition: Ebonyi State In Question

Abstract

Insecurity has been of serious concern to both past and present governments in Nigeria. This has been as a result of the Nigerian history and development challenges that have been continuously rooted in conflicts and instability. Various governments in the country have made several efforts aimed at addressing the situation ranging from creation of various security agencies and several reforms of the existing ones as well as various forms of youth empowerment, yet the security challenges remained unabated. The objective of this study is to find out if the rate of unemployment and level of unskilled youths in the country especially in Ebonyi State is the reason why the country has continued to remain unsafe for the citizens. The theory that anchored the study is the deprivation theory while quantitative research design which made use of survey method was employed to accomplish the purpose of the study. The data for the study were collected through structured questionnaire items and focus group discussion. 400 respondents were purposively selected from the study area. Five points Likert type scale was employed in data collection and to measure the magnitude of the responses. Data collected were analyzed using percentages. The three formulated hypotheses were tested using Chi-Square.  The findings show that youth unemployment and lack of skills acquisition as well as the character of the Nigerian state are the major causes of insecurity in Nigeria.  It equally shows that government has not made serious efforts to address unemployment rate and acquisition of skills especially the youths. The paper recommends among other things that governments at all levels should engage the youths in a productive and skills manpower development as security measure while those leaders who take advantage of these unemployed and unskilled youths to champion their selfish interest should be prosecuted whenever found culpable.