By NEXTER
The National Orientation Agency (NOA) has blamed the rising wave of kidnapping, banditry, armed robbery, cybercrime and ritual killings in Nigeria on the growing get-rich-quick syndrome among youths.
The Agency said the desperation to acquire wealth without legitimate work has eroded the dignity of labour and pushed many young Nigerians into crime.
The Nasarawa State Director of NOA, Mr. Augustine Akwe-Doma, stated this on Sunday at the graduation and prize-giving day of You-Nik Academy, Lafia.
Akwe-Doma, who was represented by the Deputy Director, Civil Values and Democracy Education, Mr. Yamusa Luka, said many youths are now in a neck-breaking competition to get rich by all means, including taking the lives of others.
“Get-rich-quick syndrome is the desire to become wealthy without hard work or any legitimate source of income. What it leads to is social vices like armed robbery, banditry, kidnapping, internet scams popularly called Yahoo Yahoo, ritual killings and so on,” he said.
He expressed concern that many young people are dropping out of school to pursue illicit wealth, a development he warned has worsened the out-of-school children crisis and spells doom for the country.
“In Lafia in particular, our young generation don’t want to learn again; everybody wants to get rich now now. I have said in many fora that young people who are in a hurry for quick wealth are also quick to die. That is why you see them involved in accidents everywhere in town,” he said.
Luka also blamed some parents for fuelling the trend by mounting pressure on their children and comparing them with their peers.
“Without fear of contradiction, parents are also encouraging this. You see parents telling their children that they want them to build houses and buy cars for them. They even assist in buying phones and laptops for them to learn Yahoo Yahoo,” he said.
He charged youths, especially school leavers, to shun cultism, fraud, kidnapping and other vices, and to embrace hard work, entrepreneurship and legitimate means of livelihood.
He commended the management of You-Nik Group of Schools for inculcating values such as honesty, hard work and zero tolerance for examination malpractice, and urged other schools to emulate its model.
In her goodwill message, the Permanent Secretary, Nasarawa State Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism, Hajiya Hadiza Dahiru, said the administration of Governor Abdullahi Sule has prioritised education, as evident in the recent merit-based recruitment of teachers.
She called for strict supervision of public schools, saying some teachers still engage in truancy.
“There should be strict supervision of all public schools, because sometimes you find teachers sitting under trees doing nothing. If they know they are being monitored, they will sit up and do their tasks,” she said.
Dahiru also called on the state government to introduce free education for the girl-child to boost enrolment and reduce the number of out-of-school girls.
Earlier, the Proprietress of You-Nik Academy, Mrs. Ima-Abasi Ekannem Brown, said the 16-year-old school is driven by the vision to raise confident, disciplined, innovative and compassionate children.
She disclosed that about 50 pupils and students are currently on full scholarship, including orphans and exceptional students.
According to her, one of the beneficiaries, Dominion Lazarus, who has been on scholarship for 10 years, scored 325 in the recent Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), while another student, Zainab Idris, emerged overall best in the country in an essay competition organised by SystemSpecs, winning N1 million and 10 laptops for the school.
She said the school was recently ranked first among private schools in Nasarawa State by the Centre for Ethics and Self-Value Orientation (CESVO) for ethical leadership and quality education delivery.
Brown added that in line with modern trends, the school has made Artificial Intelligence a core curriculum subject, not just an after-school club.
In an interview, the valedictorian, Dominion Lazarus, urged students to take their studies seriously and see failure as a stepping stone.
“If we see failure as a way to learn and become better, then the sky is no longer a limit; the sky is just a starting point,” he said.
He called on government to reform the education curriculum to equip graduates with practical skills for self-reliance.
