Recurring acts of political violence in some parts of the country has been attributed to the rising youth unemployment situation.
Many of the youth follow political parties ‘blindly’ because they did not have decent jobs and leadership of such parties and politicians take advantage of their ‘hopelessness’ to make them foment trouble.
The assembly member of the Ahenkro Electoral Area in the Banda District of the Bono Region, Jerry Sito, expressed the sentiment when he spoke at a town hall meeting on violent extremism held at Banda-Ahenkro, and appealed to the government to improve on technical and vocational education and employable skill training to attract the youth.
The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) in collaboration with the National Security organised the meeting to create awareness about violent extremism and its attendant effect on the nation’s development processes.
Mr Sito said many of the unemployed youth in the area lacked employable skills training and because they were jobless, political parties and politicians lured them to engage in political violence for their selfish political ambitions.
Habiba Mohammed, a resident at Banda-Ahenkro, indicated that televised occult activities had lured some of the unemployed youth into occultism to acquire riches and power and called on the National Communication Authority to control such activities on television.
“These televised activities are influencing the youth in the area to engage in rituals and acts of immorality to get quick money and wealth,” she lamented.
Peter Gyasi, the Deputy Bono Regional Director of NCCE, took the participants through Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and advised the people to use the mechanism to resolve disputes and their differences.
Warrant Officer Grade One (rtd.) Paul Adjei-Darkwah, a National Security personnel, urged parents to strictly monitor the activities and movements of the children because “acts of violence extremism mostly involve young people – parents and landlords can easily notice strange behaviours of the youth and take the responsibility to report to the police and landlords must check the backgrounds of tenants and monitor their movements and behaviours”.
He stressed that it was the duty and responsibility of every citizen to foster national, peace, unity and stability.
Robert Ewur, the Head of Internal Audit of the NCCE, admonished followers of political parties to remain tolerant, focus and steadfast and desist from taking advantage of joblessness of the youth to foment trouble to destabilise the country. -GNA
