Poverty and Unemployment: Its Implications for Pipeline Vandalization in Nigeria

Abstract

The challenges of petroleum pipeline vandalization have become more frequent and very disturbing. This is due largely to the extent of human lives and properties that are lost due to such occurrences. The understanding here is that the perpetrators of these acts are mostly young persons who ordinarily be tong to the active labour force but suffer from severe lack and want due to excruciating levels of poverty and unemployment. The economic situation in the country has gotten worse as the gap between the rich and the poor has widened. What has emerged across the country are agitated youths who desperately need to survive. With scarcity and hoarding of petroleum products and the flagrant increases in the prices of petroleum products coupled with the insensivity on the part of government to the plight of the masses, people have resorted to unlawful acts to get what they want. This paper therefore examines the role government and organizations interested in ameliorating the sufferings of the masses must do to address the challenges of poverty and unemployment with the hope that itwill help reduce petroleum pipeline vandalization and bring sanity to the society