The growing insecurity in the country will continue if the government does not take urgent measures to provide jobs for its teeming youth.
This follows a finding by the CLEEN Foundation in Lagos
the finding tagged "National Criminal Victimization and Safety Survey 2011" contains findings of crime victimization statistics in 2010 shows that there is a sharp increase in armed robbery and other violent crime in the country as a result of unemployment , hopelessness and corruption.
The findings by CLEEN Foundation with support from the MacArthur foundation shows that based on the survey in 2010, there is an incessant case of theft of mobile phones which is on the increase and other violent crime like domestic violence and armed robbery are also on the increase in the country.
Innocent Chukwuma, the Executive Director of the CLEEN Foundation said the survey which has been on since 2004 is aimed at providing reliable data that will assist policy makers to enact effective laws that will combat crime as well as providing law enforcement agencies with the statistics to effectively control crime in the country.
"this investment in producing reliable statistics on crime in Nigeria and promotion of their use in police planning and deployment strategies as well as in the evaluation of policing policies and practices, it is therefore not surprising that in spite of the various crime control measures that have been implemented in the country over the past eleven years of elected civilian government, criminals continue to operate in greater number over increasing wider spheres.”
According to Mr. Chukwuma, the increasing crime rate in the country can be attributed to socio-economic factors like poverty, youth unemployment, lack of basic education and amenities, materialism and corruption which implies that government has failed in its responsibility to create the enabling environment for citizens to live a fulfilled life
“These issues are not new to the government as our recommendations over the years show that it is not enough to increase police capacity by giving them guns , and equipment to work with, there are socio-economic factors like youth unemployment, poverty, poor education which makes even graduate to look for job instead of creating one for themselves all these factors must be checked in order to reduce crime and criminality in the country.
Professor Etannibi Alemika, of the department of criminology and Sociology at the University of Jos said the effective implementation of crime statistics will go a long way in enhancing national development
“Due to the significance of crime and victimization statistics, nations strive to develop adequate capacity and deploy enough human, financial and infrastructural resources for the collection and analysis of incidence,, prevalence trend and patterns of criminal activities and victimization in order to acquire necessary knowledge and ability for crime prevention and crime control.”Professor. Alemika said.
According to professor Alemika, crime victimization survey is used to obtain data on the extent of criminal victimization.
“Questionnaires were designed and administered to gather information on respondents’ experience of criminal victimization”
Prof Alemika added that for this study, a survey research methodology was employed “ the population for the study consist of all adult Nigerian males and females aged 18years and older and it was conducted in all the 36 states and the federal capital territory, also the basic methodology employed for the data collection was the in-home , face-to-face personal interview using stratified multi-stage random selection procedure in order to achieve a nationally representative sample (proportional representative sample)
According to Mr. Chukwuma, a total of 11518 respondents were interviews in 1011 and the field work was conducted by practical sampling International (PSI)
“The major findings on criminal victimization, fear of crime and corruption; respondents were asked if any member of their household (other than themselves have were victims of specific crimes in 2010.
The second question asked the respondents if they were victims of specific crimes during 2010 and from our finding the most common forms of victimization were theft of various kinds of property (GSM handset, money, and agricultural produce) domestic violence; armed robbery and physical assault were also on the increase. With about 24% of the respondents reported being victim of crime in 2010”
According to the personal victimization survey in 2010, released by the CLEEN Foundation, states with the highest level of cases of reported victimization in 2010 include , Jigawa with 73.7%, Rivers state with 52.0 %FCT 51.0% while Lagos has 11.25 with Osun state being the lest with 7.9%
One aspect of the survey revealed the level of corruption among security agencies in the country
“Our approach is to determine the extent of the corruption among officials by asking those who had contacts with officials of different agencies who ake3d them for bribe”
The finding revealed that the Nigeria police force tops the security agency in demanding for bribe with 78.8% likelihood to solicit for bribe prior to service; others include the Nigeria Customs service with 67.7%, Nigeria Immigration service with 66.8percent , The Federal Road Safety Commission 55.1 %, EFCC 51.0%, the State security Service 50.1%. The Nigeria Security and Civil defence corp were the only agency that will not solicit for bribe prior to service.
The survey also shows that majority of Nigerians who had contact with the Police, EFCC and the ICPC were not satisfied with the manner their cases were handled,
In the Aspect of fear of crime, the survey revealed that residents are fearful of rape, kidnapping and victim to armed robbery and being murderers.
The study also shows that 47.8% of the respondents stated that they feel very safe walking in their community during the day
While armed robbery and domestic violence were recurring crimes residents stated are on the increase in their community, assault and burglary were also mentioned as serious concern
“from the survey, domestic violence is becoming a worrisome trend with one out of five respondent stating that they are victim of domestic violence , also one out of two respondents said their handset was stolen, these are increasing trend in crime and the government needs to take these issues seriously ”Mr. Chukwuma said .
Professor Alemika added that the policy re3commendatiob for the priority spending to enhance security , safety and justice in the country must address the issue of job creation, “ create e better educational and vocational opportunities , reduce poverty, provide stable electricity ,increase the capacity of the police and other law enforcement agencies also there should be harsher punishment for offender which will serve as deterrent to others and in all there is need to have the political will to fight crime and criminality proactively through intelligence gathering and synergy among the security agencies
