The Niger Delta Crises: Youth Intransigence and Opportunistic Ventures in Nigeria

This paper examines the behavioural consequences of the general amnesty programme of the federal government on youth behaviour in Nigeria. For peace to reign, it was generally believed that man should prepare for war. This opinion, one is tempted to believe is the major reason for social upheavals in most part of the country especially in the Niger Delta where the youth seem to have resolved to murder sleep to ensure their own survival. The bizarre killing of their foremost leader and human right activist Ken-Saro Wiwa led to the heightened violence in the land which resulted into incessant killing, insecurity of life, pipe-line vandalization and bunkering, hostage taking, unwanted killing of innocent Nigerians among others. For peace to reign, the Federal Government has employed dialogue in the name of general amnesty for the perpetrators of this crimes and as expected they have embraced this as a better option. The danger this portends is the series of opportunistic ventures such as hostage taking of innocent Nigerians for ransom claims by some unemployed youth in Nigeria. In certain cases, political parties also employ such means of caging their opponents who are considered the people’s choice for elective positions thereby robbing the nation of the right caliber of people needed for development. This has implications on the democratization process and our development in general. This paper takes a cursory look at this and offer useful suggestions for curtailing it