YOUTH HOOLIGANISM AND POLITICAL ACTIVISM IN GOMBE STATE

Abstract

The Youth involvement in negative social vices such as hooliganism and political thuggery is generally on the increase in Nigeria, and it is more alarming when the country is engaged in election processes. Youth in the country are often engage in lawless activities and to some extend changing their behaviors permanently and becoming lawless citizens instead of being an active group for economic and political development of the country. The prevalence of such activities especially during election period is a phenomenon that caught the attention of researchers and security operatives. The therefore generated data from primary source from 265 questionnaires distributed among a purposive sample arrived at using Krejcie & Morgan (1970), and the response from the field was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Also, secondary data was generated from analysis of existing literature. At the end of the work, it was revealed that political elites in the state are capitalizing on the vulnerability of the youth because of poverty and some social problems and are engaged them in political hooliganism and Thuggery. It is therefore recommended among others that government needs to initiate a program that will attempt to address poverty among Nigerians, shifting attention to vocational system of education so that the teeming youth can learn one trade or the other and be self-employed.