Nigeria has not been fair to youths, says Akeredolu

Ondo State Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu has said the government at all levels has not been fair to Nigerian youths, stressing there was no concrete plan for the survival of youths.

Akeredolu said this, yesterday, at the summit on youth unemployment, titled: “#EndSARS and Aftermath: The way Forward,” held in Akure, the Ondo State capital.

He lamented that successive governments in the past did not plan for the youths, thereby culminating in an alarming rate of unemployment nationwide.

“Our youths, we have not done enough for you; we need your co-operation. We have to come together,” he said.

He, therefore, appealed for the establishment of technical schools and trade centres to produce youths who are self-reliance and employers of labour.

Akeredolu, who noted that the country must chart a new cause to address the issue of youths’ unemployment, stressed that no government could employ all the unemployed youths in the country.

He, however, advocated a population law, saying it is one of the ways of addressing the growing rate of unemployment across the country.

He said that the move would empower the youths and discourage massive jostling for white-collar government jobs by the array of unemployed youths across the country.

Meanwhile, Minister of State for Niger Delta Affairs, Tayo Alasoadura, said the summit, as acknowledged by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government, was apposite to discuss the situation of the nation.

According to him, the nation needs serious dialogue to survive, saying the bane of the country is youth unemployment, blaming successive governments.

He said that the private sector had been destroyed, thereby over-stressing the public and civil service for employment.

“We are in trouble and this trouble started long time ago because nobody was building roads and providing electricity. People only came to government in the past, pack the money and went away.”

Alasoadura noted that a shift from public or government jobs is the way forward through support from government for entrepreneurship and small-scale businesses.

He, therefore, gave the assurance that the Federal Government would continue to support the employment drives of the state government, especially on the exploitation of bitumen, Olokola Free Trade Zone, and Ondo Deep Seaport.