CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1   BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Owerri District has a population of over 240,000 people, 60% of this population live below the poverty line of less than 1 US dollar per day leading to poor standards of living. There is massive population explosion and pressure on the meagre resources like land, water, health, education, infrastructure, agriculture and some micro-finance enterprises in the region.
Due to the vicious cycle of poverty, there is gross violation of human rights as per the Geneva Convention that every person has the right to life, liberty and security. Other fundamental human rights violated in Owerri District included article 2 where men and women are to be treated equally which is not the case, instead they are subordinates and not allowed in decision making especially on assets. The area has been a high population growth of youths (70%) who have neither trained, completed school or dropped out of school due to unemployment have resulted to violent crimes in the area such as murder, assault, rape, prostitution, theft, burglary, armed gangsters, banditry, trade in illicit rugs like bhang, changaa (local beer). Article 5 of the Declaration of Human Rights the states that no one shall be subjected to torture cruel inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment, economic or political liberty. The rights of the inhabitants of Owerri have been highly contested leading them to fall into traps of violent crimes in the region..
Poverty as a social phenomenon has affected the entire population in the region, poverty and inequality often results due to social instability, diseases, environmental degradation, struggle for natural resources and constraints on the basic needs in the society. In 1992 it was estimated that 42% of the approximately 525 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa lived below the poverty line of US $ 370 per capita and the number was expected to increase by 50% in the year 2000. It is noted that women, children, old age, disabled and the orphans are the most affected with poverty. The unstable micro-economic environment, poor development policies which yield to low economic growth not consistent with economic growth, poor infrastructure, dependency ratio in the area is also high. There is need for proper planning, decision making and economic empowerment of Owerri people to alleviate poverty in the region. The District budget allocation should be allocated, reviewed and strategic plans made to oversee the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) Local Government Transfer Fund (LATF), Women Development Fund, and Youths Fund to help improve the income of the people for better standards of living. “People must not be allowed to be come so poor that they offend or are hurtful to the society. It is so much that misery and plight of the poor but the discomfort and the costs of the community which is crucial to the view of the poverty. Poverty due to low income creates problems for those who are not poor”. (Martya 1981)[1]
Crime as an act of sufficient challenges to the people of Owerri District has created fear for development and investment in the area which has no industry and processing services to bring income and employment to the area. Most of the businesses in the major towns are grocery, and casual labour especially in
Luanda, Esibuye, Kilingili, Khumusalaba, Mwichio. Most of the occupation of Owerri is subsistence farming on small holdings mainly done by women to subsidize the family income. There are many crimes counted in the area such as juvenile delinquency as crimes counted be of children less than 18 years who make gangsters/ banditry, rape and murder people in the villages I.e. the Town Down gangsters of Luanda Town, the 42 brothers, and Musumbiji and others. Acts of crime, gambling, prostitution, vagrancy, homosexual are notorious to control in the District and thus referred to as victimless crimes. White collar crimes are committed by respectable persons through corruption. The purpose of this study is to investigate and establish the relationship between poverty and crime in Owerri District and recommend ways on reduction of crime.
The purpose the study was to establish the relationship between poverty and crime and make recommendations of helping the Abanyole people of Owerri and the government to alleviate poverty and crime in the area of study. The research is to generate ways of solving poverty through proper planning on investments, implementation of government projects solve unemployment, land tenure problems and enact a good policy legal framework to curb crime in the area.
Information from this study will be used by Governmental Departments i.e. Constituency Development Fund (CDF), Youth Fund, District Budgetary allocations, Education Offices, Provincial Administration and Non-Governmental Organizations to make right decisions to empower the economic status of the area to alleviate poverty and violent crimes as well as gross violation of human rights. The Ministry of Planning and National Development, Ministry of finance, The Office of the President and Provincial Administration to promote food security, health and sanitation services, investment and cur b violent crimes in the region. The study will be useful in investigating and establishing factors leading to poverty and how to curb them through the recommendations of the study in accordance to Malthusian’s population Theory on Fundamental Human rights and conflicting theory on crime issues. The findings of this study will enable to put down factors leading to poverty and come up with strategic plans to help reduce it engage the entire population towards positive economic development of the area.
1.2   STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Poverty has a great influence on the crime rate in Owerri district of western Nigeria. Poverty can be in state of absolute where there is lack of the basic resources needed to maintain minimum of the physical health, normally calculated in calories, while relative poverty has quantitative dimensions which refer to general standard f living in different societies due to cultural sensitivity and variations between and within societies over time. Poverty is due to massive inequality due to poor allocation of investment, education, planning and policy implementation, inadequate health facilities, human rights violations such as economic empowerment, right for protection, security, children’s rights, and right to life.
Owerri area with a population of over 240,000 suffers from poverty and crime due to underdevelopment and expansive population which constraints the meagre available natural resources. There are no investments in the area apart from some small micro-finance investment Nigeria Women Finance Trust (KWFT) which are created to help women start small business holds. The Constituency Development Fund (CDF) is also geared towards enhancing small microfinance projects in education, infrastructure, youths, markets, farming in the area to alleviate poverty. There are conflicts over the scarce resources like land ownership, safe drinking water, streams, food, education, health which results into conflicts and criminal activities and offences due to poverty. Crime and violent conflicts is growing due to disparities in wealth, increasing unemployment among the youths, population press he on land and resources leading to environmental degradation which provokes social discontent, polarization leading to social strife in the region. According to vigorous approach theory societal conditions of deep spread and deep poverty is essentially deprivation suffered by a large segment of some important essentials for sustenance such as sufficient income to provide housing, clothing, food and education, health facilities adequate opportunities for production employment which leads to societal stress. Stress leads to increasing the anger and frustration of the poor suffering who are then exploited by violence promoting war bent demagoguery. Indeed scarcities of the basic needs amongst the population causes social segmentation, group formation and strengthen groups identity which creates violent collective action which takes forms from rime war, terrorism, riots, civil insurgencies, political repressions to its ultimate forms.