Many people are tired of what is happening and want to see peace reign in Nigeria.''General GowonIt was probably by sheer coincidence that some of our leaders chose the new season of festivities to lament over the predicament of the country. About a fortnight ago, PresidentGoodluck Jonathan saw the rate of unemployment among the youth as a time bomb, unless something urgent was done to address the nagging problem. On Monday, it was the turn of former President Olusegun Obasanjo to echo a similar warning when he declared that the country risked the ongoing Arab Spring scenario, which has disgraced sit-tight leaders and anti-reformists out of power in some countries. Like a hurricane, a similar uprising is ravaging that region despite the relative evidence of true and sincere service rendered to their people, if we are to go by the egocentricism of the Nigerian ruling class. Obasanjo was of the view that a disconnect between economic growth and employment generation was the time bomb that orchestrated the popular revolt in the Arab countries.Elsewhere, another former military leader, General Yakubu Gowon, literarily wept over the seeming collapse of values in the Nigerian state owing to the action and inaction of its leaders. He wondered about what went wrong such that Nigeria was now on the tethers and needs a concerted effort to retrieve it from the abyss. Gowon, who providence made to implement the Three Rs: Reconciliation, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction after he had successfully prosecuted the three-year Nigerian civil war which ended in 1970, was among summiteers at a forum in Kaduna on Monday, convened by some northern leaders to chart a new beginning for the North and to some extent the beleaguered country.Happily, he exhibited the candour before the august audience by itemising those obvious and critical issues bedeviling the country, but which many still shy away from publicly. My only observation was that the former leader was not actually the first eminent person, who would identify those major obstacles to progress in the North nay the Nigerian federation. Former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, consistently drew the attention of the Northern political elite and indeed the general populace to those problems while he was in office, but with the ruling class not going beyond rhetoric. However, to show his exasperation with the current situation, Gowon said it was unfathomable that Nigerians could resort to killing one another for any reason whtsoever. 'Why do we have crises everywhere' Muslims killing Muslims, Muslims killing Christians, Christians killing Christians,' he queried.The apparent failure of the system, which these leaders highlighted, was subtly corroborated by the current United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Report which ranked Nigeria 142th out of 146 nations listed as the least prosperous countries. Besides, it was categorized as one of the 15 countries out of 42 considered as the 'least (in) human development,' thus putting to question all our claims of some significant achievements in the area of human capital development lately.To complete the circle of lamentation, a former minister and current Vice president of the World Bank for Africa Region, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili voiced out over the debilitating effect of corruption on Nigeria, asserting that the menace constituted a wedge between Nigeria and development. Of course, she would have spoken from the hindsight of history, having served in two different capacities under the Obasanjo Administration. Accordingly, she said the recent sliding of the country in the rating by Transparency International (TI) makes it imperative for the leadership of the country to make the war on graft an urgent priority.I can also recollect that three years ago, a former British Prime Minister, David Cameron, cautioned Nigeria against playing with the head of a cobra by undermining the grave danger posed by the alarming rate of youth unemployment in the country. He was seriously concerned that the country could be faced with such danger, in spite of its huge human and material potential.Though we have an appalling culture when it comes to keeping accurate records, some experts claim that there are about 80 million youths in the country with 60 million of them unemployed and 1.6million under-employed. Any act of restiveness among them can undermine democracy and endanger the Nigerian structure. Fundamental issues like a rapid population growth, the abysmal neglect of rural areas constitute the potential tinker. The collapsed manufacturing sector is another factor, as it woes are being compounded by the epileptic state of the energy sector.We must stop dancing around all these issues without further delay if the danger foretold by eminent experts within and outside Nigeria must be averted. Part of the long term steps should be devolving power from the centre such that the center will become less attractive to the political parasites among the ruling elite. It will allow each unit to move at their pace and become more inward-looking. The absolute dependence of the federating units on the centre on revenue makes it attractive to those who want to feather their individual nests and get to power by hook or crook.In the interim, we must review the current strategies at different levels to create employment, especially for the teeming youths, most of who are roaming the streets after leaving higher institutions. Such programmes like NEEDS, NDE and NAPEP have proved to be mere agencies for sloganeering rather than organisations designed to detonate a time bomb. Unfortunately, the Directorate for Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI), which gains we ought to consolidate, went the way of lofty agricultural programmes like the farm settlement schemes of the first republic.The situation may be bad, yet, our leaders, particularly state governors can still rekindle hope in the Nigerian people by harnessing the vast opportunities at their disposal to come up with more meaningful ways of empowering the youths through skill acquisition. We should, as a matter of fact, discard the idea of distribution of motorcycles otherwise called Okadas as a form of economic empowerment. Ironically, most of the governors are turning around to accuse the Okada riders of deploying their motorcycles to commit violent crimes like armed robbery. The nation's real untapped goldmine is agriculture. But to tackle the challenge posed by the army of the unemployed youths, the governors should consider replicating what the Ondo State government appears to have achieved lately through the resuscitation of the farm settlement scheme. The government is reported to have provided basic infrastructure and residential accommodation for all youths employed for the scheme and is paying salaries above what many under-employed youths are paid as salaries in cosmopolitan cities like Lagos, Kaduna and Enugu.The days ahead will determine the genuineness of the current outcry of Nigerian leaders on the crisis over unemployment among the youths. But for now, it can be assumed that many of the leaders have joined the fray over the so-called time bomb via the youth unemployment, because of the challenge it posed to their stupendous wealth and general economic and social status, and not necessarily out of their genuine love for the people and their fatherland, otherwise, they could have been more proactive and realistic while in office over official policies and programmes aimed at averting the current danger.One can assume based on empirical evidence that many of the leaders have joined the fray over the youth unemployment lurking volcano, because of the serious challenge it poses to their stupendous wealth and general economic and social status, and not necessarily borne out of genuine love for the people and the country. Their worry cannot be altruistic, otherwise, they could have been more proactive and realistic while in office .Oderemi, 08023501874 (sms only)
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