Drugs and Scams: Has the Nigerian Society Betrayed its Youths? (2)

What role does the Nigerian society play in creating discontentment among its people, such that they are forced into crimes to amass wealth. I have read several cases where parents cajole their children into crimes due to the treatment meted out to such children. 

There are instances where parents tell sons to build them a bigger house when they are aware the son's financial capability won't afford a new property. Failure to do that the son enters in the bad book of the parents, loses his respect, becomes a backstabber who doesn't care about the shame his parents go through living in an old house. Some even get ejected from the house (if they still lived with their parents). 

Apart from parents, the society in general has a penchant for worshiping wealth. Either a learned behavior owing to years of battling with abject poverty or illiteracy, it's also one of our major problems, people tend to praise young men who come about sudden wealth, without any obvious source. 

Such people are given special seats in the church, invited to church fund raising events and offered traditional titles in their communities. Such glorification of ill-gotten wealth, I believe, serves as a spur, urging youths to acquire more of such wealth. Erosion of traditional virtues of honesty and integrity which had been embedded in the cultures of various ethnic nationalities making up Nigeria by overly westernization has a role to play as well. 

As the churches shift away from preaching salvation and towards exhortation for wealth acquisition, most youths engage in crimes believing they have God's imprimatur. Nigerians who travel abroad to study have relatives back home asking when they are sending home that Lamborghini or Ferrari. Such Nigerians, not ready to face the shame of being called a lose upon getting home, engages in crime to find money to buy cars and build houses at home. 

Most criminals do the crime to please others. So the society has a role to play. As usual, I will end by asking the question again. Hopefully, another reader will give me a fiery response like my friend did above. Therefore I ask. Drugs and Scams: Has the Nigerian Society Betrayed its Youths?