Social exclusion, restiveness and youth violence

Abstract

This paper examines youth restiveness with specific examples from socially excluded communities across the nation and the challenges it brings to the socio-political and economic system cum the willing foreign investors and investments. This work relies heavily on secondary sources of data; to examine the activities of youth violence in the country. Some of these youth gangs are the Yandaba in Kano state, Area boys in Lagos, Kauraye in Katsina, and of course the Niger Delta militants, the Mosob in the east and a host of others in some parts of the country. These are restive youths due to an unequal distribution of the socio-political and economic resources of the country. When socially excluded youths cannot depend on those institutions designed to protect them, violence becomes an instrument to achieve certain outcomes, such as justice, security, and economic gains. When conventional methods of obtaining and working for increased social status, higher incomes and wider influence are limited, as they are often are, in marginalized communities, consequently, they are compelled to resort to violent actions and behaviors.  Thus youth violence and violence interact in a vicious circle that leaves the youth in a hostile social situation, where the borders between legal and illegal, legitimate and illegitimate are not clear and uncertain. The use of violence by these youths who are in the minority affects the lives of the majority of the people, who do not resort to violence,  thereby disrupting economic activities, thus affecting human and capital development negatively.