Bridging the Gap: Answering the Questions of Crime, Youth Unemployment, and Poverty through Film Training in Benin, Nigeria

Abstract

There is a connecting link between poverty, unemployment, youth restiveness and development in Nigeria. Among the Millennium Development Goals’ (MDGs’) target of 2015 is poverty alleviation and wealth creation in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing areas of the world. In a recent publication, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has identified the burgeoning video film industry in Nigeria as a veritable small and medium enterprise (SME) tool that could be used to alleviate poverty, create jobs for teeming Nigerian youth, and contribute to the global value chain of wealth creation.¹ The questions of youth restiveness, unemployment, and all shades of crime have taken a dominant space in global discourse, even as youth intransigence is threatening to shred the fabric of Nigerian society.² Indeed, Otive Igbuzor warns that several intelligence reports on Nigeria indicate that if the country is unable to create about 24 million jobs for its growing population by 2015, it could become a failed state.³ This is a grave issue that demands urgent attention considering Nigeria’s role in sustaining peace in the West African subregion and indeed in the whole of Africa.