Following massive recruitment of youths into National Youth Service (NYS) programmes, many youths can be said to have benefitted from military training to serve at various levels in fighting crime.
This has been vital in absorbing many youths especially upon completing their secondary school education thus equipping them with skills and training to take part in nation building.
However, following a large number of trained youths who pass out every year as well as the scandals that have rocked the programme over the past few months, most of these youths are now in search of menial jobs as a large number of them remain jobless.
Armed with military training as well as knowledge of military operations, the youths pose a higher risk to security than the ordinary civilians thereby calling for a need to address the situation urgently.
Like other civilians, some of them have resorted to join the competitive job market in search of the available.
Speaking to one of the cohorts in a brief interview, James Njuguna who completed his training in September 2014 narrated the ordeal after his contract was cut short following the NYS scandal in which Sh791 million is alleged to have been stolen.
“After I completed the training and subsequently passed out in September 2014, I started working with one of the training camps and later joined the rest after the NYS programme in community service was rolled out. Following the scandal, most of us were dropped. I have not been working since then but we have been promised time after time that we will be called back to duty. The private sector has been reluctant to absorb some of us due to the nature of our training,” Njuguna narrated.
The government should therefore not only equip youths with this form of training but also offer opportunities for them to help in fighting crime instead of creating loopholes for crime to prevail.