The challenges posed by the menace of miscreants and hoodlums to the security of the society, which has assumed a more dangerous dimension, should be tackled headlong with a renewed vigour.
The current un-salutary spate at which the Nigerian society is breeding street urchins and miscreants, calls for a tangible approach on the part of the government at all levels, without exception.
And, if not checked with all might and political will the menace deserved, there is no doubt that the propensity of the attendant social disorder will continue to threaten the future of the country. Sad enough, the unpalatable situation is being watered daily on the altar of government’s lacklustre and poor attitude to nip this critical national problem in the bud.
Ordinarily, the trends across the country suggest that the government is doing little or nothing to address the root causes of this problem confronting the country.
The truth about the unfortunate problem today is to see underage children in Nigerian cities, especially Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano, Ibadan, among others, roaming the streets to beg for money, especially from motorists in the traffic, who they dispossessed of their belongings in order to sustain their livelihood, thereby constituting great danger to the future of the country.
On the face of it, investigations indicated that most of the children involved in this uncharitable practice are either orphans or have run away from home, who for lack of proper parental care took to the streets to fend for themselves.
These children, who are susceptible to crime and criminality, in their later age, engage in all sorts of heinous activities such as stealing, pickpocketing, drug abuse, smoking of India hemp, and to worsen the situation, they later gravitate to full scale armed robbery, kidnapping and assassinations, threatening the life of the society.
It is for this reasons that the government should, as a matter of urgent policy, be more proactive in its provisions to adequately cater for these children at their tender age through provision of education before they grow up to constitute a menace for the country.
It is, therefore, incumbent of the federal, state and local governments to deal with this nagging issue at the formative stage than to allow it to degenerate through the neglect of the children and wait until it gets worse.
Today, Lagos State Government is spending a huge amount of the people’s tax to fight the miscreants and their obnoxious activities in some of their hotbeds across the state, especially Oshodi, Ojota, Mile 2, and Ajegunle, Iyana Ipaja and Ijora, among other areas. As much as we salute the courage and effort of the Lagos State Government, ordinarily, such money would have been spent on other urgent areas of need of the state, provided the government, like others had done the right thing at the right time.
What is needed is not the 11th hour approach to rid the streets of this social malady, but for the government to initiate concerted action that will redirect its approach to tackle the menace at the early stage. Here, the government needs to educate and train the children by instituting social welfare policy that will take the children far away from the streets before they become security threat to the society.
However, the free education policy of some state governments may, perhaps, be a right step in that direction, but the policy should go beyond provision of free education by ensuring that every child, irrespective of his or her circumstance of birth and family background should find a place in those schools.
The essence of the social welfare programme is to house and feed the children, as well as provide for their educational needs or training that will redirect their steps towards becoming useful adults, rather than neglecting them today only to spend huge resources in fighting the ills caused by them tomorrow.
More debilitating as the activities of these miscreants could be and the resources and energy to fight them, Non-Governmental Organisations, as well as civil society groups should rise up to save the lives of these children by joining hands with the government in investing on the future of the children.
But, the unfortunate thing about this scenario is that these are the same miscreants the politicians resort to in fanning the ember of their inordinate political interest.
Of course, the first task of redirecting the nation on the path of greatness should begin with the quality of people that constituted themselves as a nation, and not how much of the government’s budgetary allocations go into providing security by cleaning the streets or motor parks, arresting hoodlums.
To achieve this, the nation requires a renewal of energy and fresh commitment on the part of the government to address the needs of the people in the scheme of national development without ordinarily leaving out any segment of the society.
