Fearing the Anger of Unemployed Youths!
One problem that has always undermined the peace and stability as well as the socio-economic development of the country is that of youth unemployment which no government in all the life-long history of Sierra Leone has been able to solve.
What culminated into the ten year gruesome war this country experienced could never be delineated from the perennial problem of youth unemployment that blighted affairs in the nursing years of the war in the country.
Youths then became object of misuse because of their status, they were idle with nothing to do and thus vulnerable to any situation that surfaced and the likes of Foday Sankoh – the deceased rebel war lord knew that and made good exploits from it.
The vast many of our youths resorted to carrying guns as a means of survival when there were none, the wrecked carnage, caused untold human pains and suffering, the maimed, looted, they raped, took drugs and killed to the extent that they ruined their own very lives.
Rehabilitating them after the war cost a lot both in terms of time, resources and repercussion to the peaceful existence of the citizenry. Up to now scars from such development still lingers unhealed.
Not too long from such ugly experience, the government of Sierra Leone under the patronage of the All People Congress who bred similar situation in the 80s, the country is apparently underway to such civil and social breakdown.
Ever since the war ended in 2002, there been no means of sober employment for the Sierra Leonean youth which is one of the reasons the ousted the SLPP without any regrets in the 2007 general election.
The APC has not learnt from that situation, in its entrenched bureaucracy and corruption, it is stifling progress in the current overseas employment opportunity for the youths to Iraq and Afghanistan, and being one of the most glamorous opportunities they have ever had after the war in terms of employment, they are desperate to have their way, “the government goes as far as to foiling their chance at the taste of greener pasture; mayhem will strike forth as some of them have practically sold all they have to ensure that they have their way for better life even at the war front in those warring countries.
We don’t like to see a situation wherein over three thousand youths are left on the street destitute and abandoned. That will not auger well for the social and economic peace of the country. That will mean anything from resorting to day-light robbery to armed robbery that might gradually degenerate to uglier situations. Urgent intervention is needed to straighten out things in the Iraq programme!
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