|
By Taye Obateru
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
JOS— ADMINISTRATOR of Plateau State, Major-General Chris Alli (retd.) has blamed widespread unemployment for the increasing involvement of youths in criminal activities. In a message to the launch of a Campus AIDS Awareness Movement Project (CAMP) at the University of Jos by the Centre for Youth and Law Enforcement Research (CREAL), he said poverty has made youth to become easily manipulated by the political and economic elite who use them for selfish motives. According to Alli who was represented by the Head of Service, Mr. Luka Fwangyil, the youth were the major perpetrators of the violence and upheavals in different states of the federation including Plateau expressing regret that they were destroying their future by this. He advised the youth to reconsider their approach to solving problems arguing that a peaceful and mature approach to resolving differences would not only guarantee a brighter future for them but also accelerate the country’s development.
Also speaking, President of CREAL, Dr. Sam Smah said the AIDS awareness project was one of the programmes designed by the body to address some of the problems confronting the youth in Nigeria. He lamented that the spread of HIV/AIDS on university campuses had become alarming and needed to be taken seriously saying “there is an unrelenting occurrence of a socially created monster called HIV/AIDS on our campuses. “He said the organization would establish an AIDS research and advocacy centre at the University of Jos which would provide free screening and counseling services for staff and students and ultimately build a laboratory for AIDS cure research, among others.
Dr Smah disclosed that CREAL also planned to address other social problems plaguing the country such as rising unemployment, poverty and corruption, increasing lawlessness as well as drug abuse and related criminal activities, especially as they affected the youth. “Poverty level has risen to almost 80% among the population in the last one year. To worsen matters, government’s efforts at bringing down inflation rate to a single digit ended up raising the inflation rate to 18.7% in the first quarter of this year.”
|
