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A student from the rural area therefore faces a bleak future; a life of struggle and poverty from the cradle to the grave often doing menial jobs. Of course, the situation will have been better had the distribution of facilities been less uneven between the cities and the rural communities.
An individual who is the product of the rural community faced with the above tales of woes at a point in his lifetime becomes frustrated particularly when he sees his age-mates from the city driving Porsche cars and controlling the political and financial machinery of the country. He then contemplates theft. He assumes that the city man has so much and thinks that if he steals a little from him, it will make little or no difference. If he succeeds in stealing, he goes away happy being very justified. However must times, he may be very unlucky and he is caught. He is accused of stealing, consequently, he is charged to court and sentenced to prison.
It should be pointed out quickly that even the cities do face similar problems. It is a well-known fact that in the cities, there too are schools better equipped than others. These well-equipped schools are most often than not owned by private proprietors in contrast to government owned schools, which are poorly equipped. That the Nigerian government is yet to take paramount notice of the educational sector is shockingly irresponsible.
Talking about natural resources Nigerian is currently the 6th largest producer of oil in the world yet, the people of the Niger-Delta where these oil fields are located live in abject poverty while oil company workers live in affluence. We are aware of the fact that the exploration of these oil fields will bring about environmental pollution to the various communities. The exploration of the oil has polluted their waters and killed aquatic life. All these cries of pollution of rivers and farmland, particurlaly where you can say the golden egg is being laid is unjustified. It is criminal not to pay attention to making sure that job are created for the youths and the unemployed in the area.
When the youths as a result of unemployment and frustration, decides to attack oil companies most times taking their staff hostage, the Nigerian Society frown at their action. Does this not tell us that there is something significantly still amiss?
Hope was high in 1995 that the execution of the Ogoni nine would at least help to redefine terms of structural and statistical imbalances in the economic production of the nation wealth. The Abacha regime and its successor, in spite of the above historical memory proved, through sheer indifference or mischief to continue to ignore complaint; even as it paid more attention to matters of state jamboree, welfare of neighbouring countries, creation of job for first ladies, construction of state of the art staid, and the transformation of Abuja into a modern architectural master piece. These superseded the Niger-Delta decimal.
Earlier, perhaps, to correct the injustices done to the people of the Niger-Delta, the Babangida’s regime enacted the Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission, Decree No 23 1990 (OMPADEC). Of significant importance is section 2 sub-section2.
The sums received by the commission shall
(a) be used for the rehabilitation and development
of oil mineral producing areas on the basis of the
ration produced in the popular state, Local
Government Area or Community and not on
the basis of the dichotomy of on-shore or
Offshore oil production. (Emphasis mine).
Not surprisingly. OMPADEC ended with the Bababgida regime. The Obasanjo’s regime in pursuit of justice for the Niger-Delta people enacted the Niger-Delta Development Commission (NDDC) bill. The functions of NDDC are quite similar with that of its predecessor (OMPADEC).
It does appear that with the regular disruption of activities at the oil farm terminals, kidnap of oil workers, eruption of violence, the NDDC still lacks the needed mi em to bring succour to the Niger Delta people. Therefore, as long as this problems exists, society should never blame the frustrated youth of the Niger-Delta whose last resort is to take up arms and fight for the course of justice. These actions of theirs is Socially Inevitable!
From the fore going, society should therefore be made to pay very dearly for the frustrations it has inflicted on individuals. After all, as earlier observed, the view of criminology is that society prepares the crime while the individual merely commits it. The individual is pushed by a force beyond his control to commit crime. This force emanates from the social imbalances in the society. Why then should an individual be made to pay for a crime prepared by the society?
Of course, society is a very complex organism; one that is difficult to imagine as one mass of humanity. Moreover, there are so many competing and in many instances, outright antagonistic tendencies within any society, that the idea of social singularity may be too difficult if not completely impossible to imagine. And yet, the success or indeed failure of any society depends on the mechanism by which dissenting opinions and practices are amicably resolved as the hallmark of a successful society.
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umeche, chinedum ikenna
CHINEDUM UMECHE is a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. He is a memeber of Amnesty International, London and The Young International Arbitration Group of the London Court of International Arbitration. He currently works with G. E. Ezomo and Co, a law firm in Benin City, Edo state, Nigeria.
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Comments
just so nice umeche, chinedum ikenna | Nov 3rd, 2006
i read your article indebtly and was so engrossed that i never knew when i missed my dinner! you really did a nice job there ikennaz. keep it up
james
well thought of umeche, chinedum ikenna | Nov 3rd, 2006
i was just trying to imagine what came over you when you wrote this. you must have really been inspired by the myriad societal ills that bedevil our very existence. we hope that you will not just stop at exposing your theory but will look for ways, both overt and covert to implement them especially in the 3rd world countries.
walele bridget
david mbitu | May 27th, 2008
nice work. Hope to red and share with you, I'm studying and working on criminology.
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