Drug Abuse, Youth Violence and Social Order: A Study of Petroleum Hawkers in Minna, Niger State, Nigeria

Abstract

This paper explored the relationship between the abuse of drug and youth violence in Nigeria. The petroleum hawkers who were almost exclusively males, within the age bracket 15-35 years and with a penchant for violence in the city of Minna, Nigeria , had their activities examined as a reference point for youth violence. The antisocial activities of petroleum hawkers during fuel procurement often threaten peace which has also earned them an identity A multi-stage random sampling procedure was used to select four wards out of eleven that constitute Minna metropolis. A sample of two hundred (200) respondents was selected, however, only 165 were found to be good for analysis after data cleaning, representing 83% of the response rate. Using Pearson Product Moment Correlation, the study found that violence activities among petroleum hawkers were attributable to drug abuse as a result of significant correlation at P≥0.05. The result of regression analysis indicates that poverty (r=8.4) could adequately explain drug abuse and violent activities among petroleum hawkers in the area of this study ,but age(r=0.5) could not. In fact, other factors that propelled hawkers to violence were peer group influence, learning (.456) and gangstarism (.217) which correlated at P≥ 0.01 level of significant.