Increasing Wave of Violent Crimes in Abia State: The Role of the Church

ABSTRACT The search light of this research is beamed on the increasing wave of violent crime in Abia State. The intentness is to highlight and underscore the role of the church as a fundamental institution for inculcating principles and virtues of proper moral conduct as well as foremost agent of social welfare and human development. This has been done by approaching the research in an objective and orderly systematic manner. In fashioning the approach, primary and secondary sources of data collection and observational technique were mostly explored in an analytical manner for circumspection and objectivity. The findings have laid bare the fact that the most devastating social problem challenging peace, security and human development in Abia is the increasing wave of violent crime, which assumed terrifying and horrifying dimensions in 2009, when kidnapping was added to crime equation in the state. And the violent crime epidemic has a lot to do with the living conditions of the people, waning and wobbling moral and ethical system, general inefficient and ineffective leadership. This research will therefore, provide valuable information with regard to the role of the church in the face of these criminal activities. It will provoke and ginger the church to stand to its toes, synergize and assist the state in administering adequate dose of liberation from the menace. It will provide insight for imperative paradigm shift that will assure a quantum leap for the people. This is because no society can really make its economic and political headways, when the ingredients of peace, harmony and social development are conspicuously lacking as witnessed in Abia. No doubt peace is the sin-qua-non to meaningful development.