Views Of Education As Weapon Against Crime

The Chairman, Alpha Nigeria, Mr. Yinka Omololu and the group’s National Director, Mrs. Abiola Ogunbiyi, have said that sound education and training are necessary Panacea for the elimination of criminality among Nigeria youths.

            They also called on the Nation’s leaders to make the Nation’s prisons reformatory by ensuring that inmates are given financial empowerment through exposure to education and vocational training while serving their gail terms.

   They spoke during a weeklong “train the trainer” programme for people from various Christian denominations interested in giving succor to prisoners in Lagos.

To contribute to the empowerment of prisoners and ex-convicts, they added that the organization had also completed a N60m School cum vocational training centre for them. 

The group, through its ‘prison Global Alpha Training; trains people who would go in to prison ministries to transform the lives of prisoners.

            According to Ogunbiyi, it is important to empower the prisoners to reduce the rte of crime in the Country she said, “The training is to empower people who want to go into prison to transform people. 

It is training for those who have passion for prison ministry. It is to enable them to transform inmates, so that they become repentant and responsible citizens.

            Schools are to be taken into the prison to run it for inmates so that they can become transformed and have the ability to pick up with faith. 

This will reduce the rate of crime and their potential to go back to crime. 

Other prisons are supposed to be reformation centers but they are not. This is just a way to ensure that people are developed spiritually and have human conscience.”

            Also, Omololu added that the group had partnered with National and International Organizations and Stakeholders to build and action plan that would ensure changes in the life of the prisoners. 

He said, “We partner with different groups both nationally and internationally. 

There is an action plan for us to work with and we are building a team that will see how the programme is going to successfully. We are equipping them with additional provision and care for ex-prisoners. 

We hope that a part from meeting their spiritual challenges, we will care for their physical needs so that they won’t commit offences that would return them to prison.”

            Earlier in his speech, the comptroller – General of Prisons, Mr. Zakari Ibrahim, commended the group, adding that achievements of the program would contribute to national development. 

He added, “Such achievement of creating school ministry for prisoners will lead to national security. 

This sunderstanding informs the reason for including prisoner’s reformation agenda into the chaplaincy services.”

Negative use of Education

            However, when education is used, like in the very poor Countries, to learn how to kill somebody, how to steal or how to do war, it may have terrible consequences on the Country. 

In this case, education is used to cause violence, intolerance and disrespect for others, authority and society in general. 

It leads to a high rate of delinquency and crime (especially for young people), civil wars, dictatorships, traffics and poverty or misery. 

In the Countries where education is not developed in a good way, we can realize that there are low standards of living and high rates of violence.

 These Countries are often on the margins of globalization. The only way to stop such an acts is through educating the young once by knowing the implication of such an acts. 

If we look at our Country Nigeria, we can see that the terrorist we are having as Boko Haram, are those that are negatively using education.   

They said that they are against Western education, but all equipment using by them are things made by those that used their Western education to make it to use.