The Nigerian authorities announced in early March that“about 70%” army personnel were engaged in actions normally devolved to the police throughout the country. “That’s not what the army is supposed to do. But we have to do it to solve our security problems,” commented Boss Mustapha, Secretary to the Government of the Federation who was speaking at a meeting organized by the Lagos Security Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), reports the Nigerian newspaper This Day. The Minister of Information and Communication Lai Mohammed had, in December 2021, acknowledged while thanking the army that insecurity, this time linked to terrorism, had been “the major challenge” for Nigeria over the past year.
Apart from the army, the federal government should also include youth employment in its arsenal to fight against insecurity for Michael Olawale-Cole, the boss of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce. “The high level of unemployment and poverty among Nigerians, especially the youth, has consistently drawn them towards crime. Failure to meet the challenges of poverty, unemployment and entrepreneurial failure is one of the main factors of insecurity in the country”he estimated according to This Day. Youth unemployment has risen steadily over the past decade in Nigeria. In the last quarter of 2020, the unemployment rate for 15-35 year olds was estimated at 42.5% compared to 33.3% for the entire population, according to national statistics.
The Nigerian example illustrates once again a reality that remains relevant even as the consequences of the idleness of young Africans evolve. Political manipulations, enlistment in rebel groups are now giving way to recruitment by terrorist groups advocating jihad. According to a study by the NGO American Enterprise Institute published in 2019 (Tackling terrorists’ exploitation of youth) conducted by academic Jessica Trisko Darden on the exploitation of young people by these groups, Africa is the continent that concentrates the most local recruitment.
“The history of insecurity in Africa links high youth unemployment to the many situations of instability on the continent, already specified in 2014 the researcher Andrews Atta-Asamoah of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). It’s about conflict (from) early 1990s to the mass killings in the Great Lakes region and other parts of Africa during the same period, to the contemporary jihadist revival manifested in AQIM’s activities in the Sahel, Boko Haram in northern Nigeria and Shebabs in the Horn of Africa. Therefore, the fact that unemployed youth are not only victims but also active participants in political instability in Africa is not new.”
A decade earlier, a note from the United Nations pointed out that “youth unemployment – and its corollary, underemployment – has become a central political-security issue in West Africa, in addition to being a socio-economic issue”. And the document continues: “Able-bodied but unskilled, unemployed and alienated young people are ready to take up arms in exchange for small sums of money – as well as the promise of recognition, spoils and ‘women’ – and are more likely to be drawn to the influence of warring factions or criminal gangs to gain that ’emancipation’.”
According to a study by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) published in 2017, Journey to extremism in Africa, 13% of young people surveyed who had voluntarily joined a violent extremist group in Africa said they had done so for job-related reasons. This answer being the third most cited reason behind the feeling of joining a great cause and religious beliefs. The survey also finds that in the regions of the continent affected by this violence“high levels of unemployment and economic needs are evident”. Thereby, “for example, youth unemployment in Kenya’s coastal and north-eastern counties is between 40 and 50% higher than the national average.” The coastal regions of the country are the most affected by terrorism. Similar observations have been made in northern Nigeria, where Boko Haram is rampant, as well as in the Lake Chad basin, in Niger, where the economic consequences of global warming are being felt.
The Sahel, where Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso are located, has thus become one of the regions of the continent where jihadists now thrive. “Although young people represent the largest segment of the population in all countries (from the Sahel)their social status and economic opportunities are limited”summarized a communication made to the Parliamentary Assembly of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in December 2020. “A population under the age of 30 lacking education, social status and economic opportunity has therefore become an important element of political instability in the region,” concluded the report.
According to the findings of the UNDP survey, “if an individual studied or worked, they were found to be less likely to become a member of an extremist organization. Employment is the ‘immediate need’ most frequently cited at the time of accession (to one of these organizations). People who joined but were studying or working (not in precarious employment) at the time (of their recruitment) took longer to make the decision to join than their alter egos in a precarious job or unemployed.”
In 2020, the International Labor Organization launched an initiative for the employment of 15-24 year olds in the Sahel, particularly in Burkina Faso, where 44% of young people live below the poverty line and 92% of the jobs available to them are in the informal sector.