VOCATIONAL AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP SKILL: A STRATEGY TO CURBING CRIME IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Nigeria is endowed with large youth population, projected to above 50 percent of its population, which can guarantee progressive economic transformation if effectively utilized. Albeit, reverse is the case as the large percentage of the teeming, agile and vibrant youth are unemployed and government over the past years have not shown much commitment to their plight. Worse still, the mainstream of these graduates are not able to engage themselves in self-employed job or business. This paper therefore argues that lack of basic skill requirement for self-employment is responsible for the inability of most graduate youth in Nigeria to be self-reliance. Consequently; youths with weak faith and in-resilient mind take up crime as their self-employment. This ugly situation account for more than 90 percent of the increasing crime in Nigeria, with its continual diversifications and mode of operations; such as internet crimes, Boko Haram disaster, tribal- religious crisis vis-à-vis kidnapping, cum pipeline vandalism by the militants. Considering the roles of vocational skill acquisition and entrepreneurship knowledge in curbing the menace of idle youths taken up crime as a source of livelihood, the paper recommends the need for the Federal Government of Nigeria to strengthen its educational policy with adequate funding and integrate educational program with vocational skills acquisition and entrepreneurship knowledge to provide the youth with the much needed basic skills requirements for self-reliance.