Investing in youth empowerment

SOCIAL vices are bad traits, unhealthy and negative behaviours that are against the morality of the society and frowned at by the public. The United Nations defines a youth as a person between the age of 15 and 24. In much of sub-Saharan Africa, the term is associated with young men from ages 15 to 30 or precisely 35 years of age. Youths in Nigeria include all members of the Federal Republic of Nigeria aged 18 to 35.

It is however sad today to find many young people turned to agents of ruin and destruction instead of being agents of peace and transformation. They freely engage in social vices ranging from drug abuse, alcoholism, smoking, pre-marital, indecent dressing, prostitution, cultism, examination malpractice, hooliganism, gambling, rape, sexual assaults and many other unhealthy lifestyles.

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According to Robert F. Kennedy, the 84th United States Attorney General, “the world demands, not a time of life but a state of mind; a temper of will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease.” Over time, peer pressure has become the major cause of youth involvement in social vices.

Poverty, mental illness, inherited traits, broken homes and complex interactions of psychological and biological forces that encourage individuals to rebel against social norms are some of the reasons why youths turn towards peer pressure.

These vices have contributed to an increase in the number of rudderless youths, hence making them to be stagnant in the areas of unproductiveness for too long.   As a result, governments at all levels should see the need to accord extreme premium on youths. Parents are not left out in the fight against social vices. They must as a matter of responsibility inculcate cultural and religious values in their children.

• Oduronbi Pelumi, Edo