INTRODUCTION
Livelihood
is a means of making a living (Ellis, 2016). It encompasses people`s
capabilities, assets, income and activities required to secure the necessities
of life. The concept of livelihood has been adopted in this study to
incorporate the social and physical environment and also people`s responses to
it. According to Ezeah (2016), livelihood is
generally defined as comprising of the capabilities, assets, both material and
social resources and activities required for a means of living. Thus, youth
negotiation of livelihood considers the material means for living in a broader
context of social and cultural interpretation. According to Gugler
(2017), livelihood is a means of supporting one`s existence either financially
or vocationally. Youth negotiation of livelihoods refers to the prevailing
conditions faced by the youths and what they do to overcome these conditions.
Sub-Saharan Africa is said to have the most
youthful population in the world.. By 2030, youth population will
account for 28 percent of the world population, making Sub-Saharan Africa the
youngest region in the world (Garcia & Fares, 2018). The implication of
this scenario is that the growth of the population of youths is bound to
outstrip the coping capacity of poorly resourced governments and economies in
developing countries to absorb new residents and provide adequate jobs, shelter
and services. In these circumstances, many if not most youths may end up in
substandard housing in marginal locations with exposure to health hazards, poor
nutrition as well as livelihood challenges.
In Nigeria, higher proportion of the youths is
found in cities (Agbu, 2019). Many of these urban
youths live in squalid slum dwellings with poor basic infrastructure and social
services. Given the situation they are confronted with, the youths are bound to
initiate and construct various forms of adaptation as livelihood strategies to
enable them survive. Because of the absence of formal employment opportunities,
youths take to various forms/nature of commercial negotiations (i.e., informal
economic activities) as livelihood coping strategies. Some nature or forms of
youth negotiation of livelihoods include: petty trading, hawking, hairdressing,
newspaper vending, food processing or sales, fashion and designing, freelance
writing, music vending, transport business (including okada, keke, commercial bus driver etc), petrol attendant, mobile telephone operator, truck
pushing, event planner, etc, whereas other youths
engage in deviant acts such as kidnapping, armed robbery, pick pocketing, car
theft, burglary, prostitution, cyber crimes, etc.
According to Ezeah
(2016), the recent attention paid to youth negotiation of livelihoods follows
from a wide recognition that significant proportions of urban poor are
vulnerable in terms of their sustainable livelihood systems. Ezeah (2016) further reiterated that the negotiation of
livelihoods often drives youths into criminal tendencies such as involvement in
cyber crimes in a bid to survive and to improve their
well-being. Agbu (2019) lamented that it is worrisome
to see some young Nigerian youths engage in cyber crimes
despite being aware of its adverse effects and consequences ranging from loss
of concentration in their academic pursuits, identity theft, deception, fake
lifestyles, womanizing, bad role models, lavish spending, public display of
wealth, tarnishing the image of one`s family and country, money rituals,
discouraging entrepreneurial mindset among other youths, promoting the culture
of get-rich-quick syndrome, surviving at all cost, misleading the younger ones,
prosecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC),
imprisonment, laziness, greed, unproductive workforce, useful instrument in the
hands of desperate politicians, etc.
The internet creates unlimited opportunities
for commercial and human activities and also introduces its own peculiar risks,
one of which is youth involvement in cyber crimes as
they negotiate livelihoods (Odapu, 2018). According
to Ameh (2017), cyber crime
is one of the fastest growing criminal activities in Nigeria. It is one of the
ways that youths negotiate livelihoods and it covers a large range of illegal
activities including financial scam, computer hacking, bank fraud, identity
theft, extortion, and theft of classified information, cyber
attack,
etc. The problem of cyber crimes have continued to
escalate. For this reason, Ndubueje (2019) believes
that the war against cyber crime is far from being
over. He posited that failure of the government to adequately provide job
opportunities has continued to motivate youths to engage in cyber
crimes as they struggle for survival.
Cyber crime affects youth
negotiation of livelihoods in diverse ways. Many youths who engage in cyber crimes are popularly known as “yahoo-yahoo or G-boys”
in our local parlance and usually characterized with get-rich quick syndrome (Obiekwe & Chukwuma,
2019).Therefore, youth negotiation of livelihoods underscores
the problems faced by youths in Nigerian cities, challenges of survival and how
these challenges drive them into engaging in cyber crimes
in the urban space. It is against the backdrop of the foregoing that this study
examines youth negotiation of livelihoods and cyber crimes
in Nigeria with the objective of finding out how negotiation of livelihoods can
drive youths into cyber crimes, the effects of youths
involvement in cyber crime as they negotiate
livelihoods and measures to improve the livelihoods of youths in order to
reduce their involvement in cyber crimes in Nigeria.
REVIEW OF RELEVANT
LITERATURE
The Concept of Livelihoods
Livelihoods are
capabilities, assets and activities required for people to earn money and
secure a means of living (Gugler, 2017). It
encompasses people`s capabilities, assets, income and activities required to
secure the necessities of life. Agriculture is the main source of livelihood
for more than two-thirds of the population in developing countries. A livelihood framework may be used as a basis for analyzing,
understanding and managing the complexity of lives (Carney, 2018, cited in Rakodi, 2019). In the livelihood framework, poverty is not
characterized by lack of assets and inability to accumulate a portfolio of
them, but also by the lack of choice with respect to alternative strategies to
survive. The livelihood framework suggests that people can choose and choices
make a difference, despite the economic or social constraints they face. By
pooling resources, by working in both formal and informal economies, by
self-construction of shelter and by the use of social networks, youths avoid
entrapment in a self-perpetuating culture of poverty (Njoku,
2013 cited in Hossani, 2017).
The Concept of Cyber Crime
There is no commonly agreed single definition of cyber
crime. However, Parker (2016) defines it as illegal internet-mediated
activities that often take place in global electronic networks. Cyber crime is international or transnational. There are no
cyber borders between countries (Parker, 2016). Cyber crime
refers to crimes that use computer networks or devices to advance other ends.
This crime includes fraud and identity theft. Similarly, Levi (2017) defines cyber crime as crime that uses a computer and computer
network. According to Anderson (2015) , cyber crime or computer oriented crime is a crime in which
a computer is used for crimes like hacking, spamming, phishing etc. In other
words, the computer may have been used in the commission of a crime, or it may
be the target. Cyber crime can also be defined as
offences that are committed against individuals or groups of individuals with a
criminal motive to intentionally harm the reputation of the victim or cause
physical or mental harm, or loss to the victim directly or indirectly, using
modern telecommunication networks such as internet networks (including but not
limited to chat rooms, emails, notice boards and groups) and mobile phones
(Bluetooth/SMS/MMS) (Jaishanker, Pang & Hyde,
2018). Similarly, Halder (2014) defined cyber crime from the perspective of gender. Thus he viewed cyber crime against women as crimes targeted against women
with a motive to intentionally harm the victim psychologically and physically,
using modern telecommunication networks such as internet and mobile phones.
Theoretical Orientation
The space transition theory by Jaishanker
(2007) and structural strain theory by Robert Merton (1957) were adopted as the theoretical framework for this study. The theories
provide analytic framework to explain youth negotiation of livelihoods and cyber crimes in the urban space. Space transition theory
provides an ideal context within which one can understand the subject of this
inquiry. Cyber technology is complex and requires some level of expertise to
manipulate; youths need to learn beyond the basics of computer programming to
manipulate the cyber space. Hence, cyber crimes take
place in the cyber space where the offenders are less likely to be tracked. The
space transition theory enables us to understand fully the process involved in
learning and reinforcement of the techniques of cyber crime
and how these constitute a push factor to cyber crime
commission. Despite regulations and security tips available to members of the
public, cyber criminals still hit their targets, amass wealth and receive the
approval of their admirers because of their expertise about the workings of the
internet.
Furthermore,
space transition basically involves the movement of persons from one space to
another. Cyber criminals behave differently when they move from the physical
space to the cyber space, the relative anonymity the cyber space offers as well
as the relative speed with which a target could be hit are strong motivations
for cyber crime commission. As a livelihood coping
strategy the victim may be lured easily into disclosing some personal
information on the internet by an impersonator than when the person comes
physically.
On the other hand,
the structural strain theory states that the social and cultural structures of
society contain two major elements. The first is the culturally defined goals
(culture goals) which members of a society are encouraged to recognize and
value as worth striving for. Examples of such goals are wealth, material
possessions, etc. The second major element of the social and cultural structure
of society is the means of modes which society has institutionalized or put in
place for the pursuit of culture goals. Robert Merton asserts that in pursuit
of culturally accepted goals and the means to achieving these goals, five
categories of people emerge in the society. They include: the conformists, ritualists, innovators, retreatists
and the rebels. With the strains associated with livelihood negotiation, the
youths who engage in cyber crimes are considered as
belonging to the ‘innovators’ category. The innovators are people who believe
in the culturally accepted goals of the society but who do not believe in the
means of achieving those goals hence, they go on to devise their own means of
achieving such goals. Cyber crime is a means of
livelihood negotiation adopted by some youths in Nigeria.
The theories above
are relevant in explaining the strains that drive youths into cyber crime. It also explains why they find cyber crime attractive. As stated earlier, cyber crime appears to be a crime that makes it difficult
to identify those involved in it. This continues to make it more attractive as
the space transition theory has helped to explain in this study. Space
transition theory and structural strain theory are suitable, appropriate and
best explains the problem of cyber crimes among
youths in a developing country like Nigeria.
Determinants of Cyber Crimes
(a) Unemployment:
In Nigeria
today, unemployment and the desire to make quick money have encouraged people
especially the youths to engage in numerous internet assisted crimes being
committed daily in various forms such as identity theft, desktop,
counterfeiting, internet chat room, cyber harassment, fraudulent electronic
mails, automated teller machine spoofing, pornography, piracy, hacking and
spanning. Usually these crimes are committed in forms like sending of
fraudulent and bogus financial proposals from cyber criminals to innocent
internet users. Thus, Odapu (2018) maintained that
these acts of criminality are encouraged because of the continuous rise in the
statistics of unemployed and underemployed graduates in Nigeria. In fact, it is
not surprising to note that some unemployed graduates and sometimes greedy or
ill-informed individuals have taken cyber crime as a
lucrative and normal way of life.
(b) Greed and easy way of making money:
According to Ajewole (2019), criminals always opt for an easy way to
make money. They target rich people or rich organizations like banks, casinos
and financial firms where huge amount of money flows
daily and hack sensitive information. Identifying such criminals is difficult.
Hence, that increases the number of cyber crimes
across the globe. Computers are vulnerable, so laws are required to protect and
safeguard them against cyber criminals (Ajewole,
2019). Anyadike (2018) noted easy access as a factor
that encourages cyber crimes; the problem behind
safeguarding a computer system from unauthorized access is that there are many
possibilities of breach due to the complex technology. Hackers can steal access
codes, images, advanced voice recorders etc that can
fool biometric systems easily and bypass-firewalls can be utilized to get past many
security systems (Anyadike, 2018).
(c) Advancement in technology and the
capacity to store data in comparatively small space
Furthermore,
another factor that encourages people especially the youths to engage in cyber crime is the capacity to store data in comparatively
small space (Nayak, 2018). The computer has the
unique characteristics of storing data in a very small space. This makes it a
lot easier for people and sometimes university students to steal data from any
other storage and use it for their own profit (Nayak,
2018). Complexity of the computer system is another factor that influences
cyber criminality. The computers run on operating systems and these operating
systems are programmed of millions of codes. The human mind is imperfect, so
they can make mistakes at any stage. The cyber criminals take advantage of
these gaps (Oloko, 2017). Negligence is one of the
characteristics in human conduct that also encourages people to engage in cyber crime. Thus, there may be a possibility that while
protecting the computer system people neglect some security measures which
provide a cyber criminal the access and control over
the computer system (Oloko, 2017). In the same line, Ejiro (2018) stated that sometimes; loss of evidence serves
as a contributory factor. The data related to the crime can be easily
destroyed. Therefore, loss of evidence has become a very common and obvious problem
which paralyzes the system behind the investigation of cyber
crime, and serving as a motivating factor for cyber criminals to
continue with their illegal trade (Oloko, 2017; Ejiro, 2018).
Consequences of Cyber Crimes on Youths` Negotiation of Livelihoods
Technology has
integrated nations and the world has become a global village. The economy of
most nations in the world is accessible through the aid of electronic via the
internet (Okoye, 2016). Since the electronic market
is open to everybody (which includes eavesdroppers and criminals), false
pretence provides a fertile ground in this situation. Thus, information
technology revolution associated with the internet has brought about two edge
functions; that is, on one hand, it has contributed positive values to the
world, while on the other hand, it has produced so many maladies that threaten
the order of the society and also producing a new wave of crime to the world.
According to Okoye (2016), the internet
online business services which ordinarily are supposed to be a blessing as it
exposes one to a lot of opportunities in various fields of life is fast
becoming a source of laziness to the youths thereby affecting their
entrepreneurial development. Lately, the internet has also become a source of
worry due to the atrocities being perpetrated through it in a desperate move to
survive.
Effective and Efficient ways to curb the incidence of Cyber Crimes in
Nigeria
According to Nayak (2018), governments and industries have gradually
realized the colossal threats of cyber crime on
economic/political security and public interests. However, complexity in types
of cyber crime calls for international cooperation.
Sequel to this, various organizations and governments have already made joint
efforts in establishing global standards of legislation and law enforcement
both on a regional and on international scale. U.S.-China`s cooperation is one
of the most striking progress recently because they are the top two source
countries of cyber crime (Nayak,
2018). Thus, Agbu (2019) stated that due to the
heterogeneity of law enforcement and technical counter measures of different
countries, there is need for legislative and regulatory initiatives of international
cooperation to control or curb the activities of cyber criminals. Though law
enforcement agencies are trying to tackle this problem, it is growing regularly
and many people have become victims of identity theft, hacking and malicious
software. Therefore, one of the best ways to stop these criminals and protect
sensitive information is by making use of inscrutable security that uses a
unified system of software and hardware to authenticate any information that is
accessed over the internet.
Discussion of Key
Issues
Negotiation
of livelihoods can drive youths into cyber crime as a
result of the challenges associated with survival in a developing country like
Nigeria with an ever rising unemployment rate. There are very limited jobs in
Nigeria for its teeming youthful population and a rising standard of living
occasioned by the rising inflation rate in the country. Cyber
crime is seen to be the easiest way to negotiate ones livelihood in
Nigeria as far as the youths are concerned. This is because it seems to present
minimal risk of being caught and also remaining anonymous. This is explained by
the space transition theory adopted as the framework of this study. In this
sense, youths engage in cyber crimes easily as they
transit from the physical space to the virtual space with the knowledge that
they can remain anonymous while engaging in cyber crimes.
Negotiation of livelihood involves doing all one can to survive. Survival
includes feeding, paying school fees (for those in school)
and other bills including sending money home to one’s parents.
Nigeria is not
the only nation where cyber crimes are perpetrated.
The incident can rightly be said to be on the increase in the country due to
lack of attention from government on the livelihood needs of youths in the
country. In Nigeria, perpetrators of cyber crime who
are usually referred to as “yahoo yahoo boys” are
taking advantage of e-commerce system available on the internet to defraud
victims who are mostly foreigners in thousands and sometimes millions of
dollars. They fraudulently represent themselves as having particular goods to
sell or that they are involved in a loan scheme project (Okogwu,
2018). They may pose to have financial institutions where money can be loaned
out to prospective investors. Consequently, these cyber criminals have watered
down the morale of zealous youths in Nigeria and almost every youth out there
in the street wants to make quick money to the detriment of entrepreneurial
education in the country. According to Okoye (2016),
the increasing rate of cyber crime in the society has
become a strong threat to Nigeria`s e-commerce growth and has led to
ill-reputation internationally and consequently denied some innocent Nigerians
certain opportunities abroad.
There is need to improve the livelihood of youths
if cyber crime must be reduced in Nigeria. The nexus
between cyber crime and youths negotiation of
livelihood has been established. Therefore, measures should be put in place to
ensure that the youths are redirected from cyber crime
as a veritable way of negotiating livelihoods. Bankole
(2016) argues that in order to tackle cyber crime efficiently and effectively, government should
build industries and create jobs for the teeming population of unemployed
youths. The creation of jobs may not entirely wipe out cyber
crime as an option explored by youths as they negotiate their livelihood
concerns. However, it will see to a reduction in the rate. The internet can
provide millions of legitimate jobs for youths. The relevant agencies must
ensure they key into the opportunities the internet presents to create jobs for
the youths so that they can use the internet for noble course and not for cyber crimes. For instance, the youths can be trained on
how to code computer programs, design websites, make
use of Excel Spreadsheet among other things. Such
skills will make them engage in a better use of the internet instead of cyber crime as a means of livelihood negotiation. There is
need for law enforcement agencies to also step up in their efforts at fighting cyber crime. As the cyber criminals are advancing in their
skills, law enforcement agencies should also be advancing in their knowledge of
these emerging skills and strategies. The family has a key role to play as an
agent of socialization. The virtues of hard work should be emphasized over
quick money by parents.
CONCLUSION
Cybercrime is
increasingly becoming attractive as a means of escaping the challenges
experienced by youths as the negotiate livelihood in Nigeria. There are
concerns that the rising rate of cyber crime and the
decrease in measures that can make youths shun cyber crime
will produce a generation of youths who would see cyber
crime as the best way to address livelihood negotiation issues. This
portends worrying signs for Nigeria. Beside the implications of being tagged a cyber crime enabling nation, the country and its citizens
stand to lose both tangible and intangible resources within and outside the
country. An enabling environment should be created for the youths to thrive
legitimately and purse their life goals. This will discourage them from seeing cyber crime as a veritable alternative. Clear cut efforts
must be made to create jobs, develop a business friendly environment and also
harness the internet for legitimate purposes that will benefit the youths in
particular and the country in general.
Recommendations
Based on the issues
raised and discussed in this paper, the following recommendations are made for
possible implementation:
1.
The internet can create millions of legitimate jobs for the youths.
Government at all levels should create coding camps and centres where the
youths can be taught various skills that will get them well remunerated jobs
over the cyber space.
2.
There should be the political will to punish youths who engage in cyber crimes by strengthening the relevant laws targeted at
checkmating cyber crimes in the country.
3.
Officials of the various relevant law enforcement agencies should be
well trained to be up to date with cyber crime
skills. Youths who engage in cyber crime are
constantly updating their strategies. The security agencies should also be
updating theirs in order to be ahead of them (the cyber criminals).
4.
Beyond the internet, the government should create jobs for its teeming
youthful population. This has been shown to be an effective way of reducing cyber crime. This can be done through supporting the
private sector to create jobs and also supporting youth entrepreneurs by
providing tax reliefs and other subsidies that will encourage them in setting
up their businesses seamlessly.
5.
The family as an agent of socialization has a significant role to play
with respect to inculcating the right values in the youths. The values of hard
work and patience should be emphasized by families above get-rich-quick and
easy money.
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