Children’s Day is a day globally set aside by government to celebrate the children. In Nigeria, the growing challenges of terrorism and other violent crimes are reasons we must take a plausible look at our children today and the role they can play in promoting security and development in the country. If there is any group affected by the growing insecurity in the world, that group is definitely children, who have become both the victim and the tormentors.
Children can learn from anybody or anthing, both good or bad. They can easily become victims of rape, kidnapping , human trafficking, drug peddlers, thieves, eyes and legs of terrorists and can be recruited into juvenile crime syndicates. These same children can also ironically become greater force against anti-social behaviour and insecurity in the country.
Children, like clean slates, exhibit good or bad what is written on them. It is therefore imperative to take a cursory look at fundamental factors threatening the societal growth of our children and in return fostering insecurity in the country.
One factor against thoroughly bred children is the instability in the home. The family unit serves as the first avenue for socialisation of the child. This is where children are taught morals, societal and anti-societal behaviours. Also, the enforcement of rules and punishment for bad behaviour.
In today’s modern world where parents have to work in offices and engages in other informal activities to provide for the children, the reverse is the case when the responsibility of catering for children, monitoring their activities, showing them affection, love and punishment are lost in the web of family instability as the parents spend less time at home with their children. Also, the high rate of divorce and single parenting have not helped the proper socialisation of the child.
The effects of this loss of communication and interaction between the child and the parents can result in joining gangs and engaging in antisocial behaviour, which fuel insecurity in the country.
Also in families where crime is celebrated, this will impact negatively on the child. The family is therefore admonished to take parenting seriously as a closely knitted family where love and affection are in abundance serves as a rich background and buffet against peer or societal pressure on children to commit crime.
The socialization process continues in the school, which can be a bedrock for grooming or destroying the child. An average child spends at least five hours in school weekly. What they learn at home reflects in the school. The responsibility then lies with the teachers and school counselors to inculcate in children anti-criminal behaviuours. A situation where teachers rape their students, punish them at will, call them names and allow bullies to feast on weak and vulnerable children will affect the psychic of the child and could lead to what is termed the withdrawal syndrome. Such a child will throw tantrum and become easy tool for criminals to exploit.
Poverty, social and economic deprivation, inequality and injustice promoted as public culture can negatively affect the child’s upbringing. On its part, societal and public culture should imbibe reward for hard work and punishment for crime. The government’s role in providing the enabling environment for parents to secure employment and cater for their children’s needs will go a long way in discouraging children of such deprived home from joining criminal gangs and stop their exploitation by terrorists and other criminals.
Nigeria is a secular but deeply religious country. The two prominent religions – Christianity and Islam – though foreign to our forefathers’ traditional African belief, have greater influence on worshippers and children alike. The promotion of societal values and security can also be achieved through religious teachings and socialization.
In promoting children’s role in addressing the issues of security and insecurity as two opposite but related blogs in societal and national development, it is imperative to ask the questions: Is the country addressing the root causes of crime among our children? Are our present deterrent measures such as remand homes, stiff penalties, prison terms, flogging and in extreme cases violent punishment like hanging a deviant child, depriving them of food and leisure, burning their fingers and grounding them worked in stopping crime among the children?
Also in the growing face of global terrorism, have we done enough to educate our children on security tips? In safeguarding their future, have we invested and implemented technology that protect their parents, loved ones from terrorist attack? What have we done to address increasing Internet crime, hackers, child labour, among others in our society?
Sadly, in some cases, such deterrent measures, especially prison terms, has corrupted the young offender more as they become shrewder and recidivists (persons capable of relapsing into criminal behaviour) as they become well grounded not to be caught a second time. In like vein, the prison, which is to serve as a correctional facility, has instead transformed the “innocent” criminal, viewed as a victim criminal, into a goon, honed for further hardened criminal tendencies.
School dropout rates, theft, gangsters, vandalism, teenage pregnancies among other antisocial behaviour will continue to rise and the resultant effect is the breeding of adult delinquents who can become hardened criminals, terrorists, drug peddlers among others.
Moulding the mind of the child from birth with the right values and exemplary behaviour, tackling poverty, unemployment and other societal decay will in no small measure position the children to become partners in policing of the society. Children, through interaction with siblings, friends, the television, eadio, Internet can become manipulative as they engage in whining, temper tantrums and violent behaviour to get away with crime they ought to be punished for. Parents who overlook the child’s antics are unconsciously setting time bombs, which will one day explode.
There is no doubt that the insecurity today is the failure to address the cursory factors, which tampered with our children’s psyche yesterday. Security agencies, especially the police, should engage in proactive measures instead of reactive measures by checking the trend of juvenile delinquency. Such preventive measures include identifying and stopping early starters, especially boys; also late boomers in crime can be arrested and properly reoriented.
But to achieve this, the police cannot work in isolation as there is the need for a nexus of commitment from the home front, the school, religious organisations, the community, the nation and the global community to consciously work towards a future free of crime and criminality. And what best way to achieve this than catching our children young before the goons get to them?