Tinubu: Nigeria competing with bandits to recruit unemployed youths

Bola Tinubu, national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), says Nigeria is competing with bandits to recruit unemployed youths.

Speaking at the colloquium to mark his 69th birthday in Kano on Monday, the former governor of Lagos also said Nigeria is under-policed while grappling with a high rate of unemployment.

“We are competing with armed robbers and bandits to recruit from the youths who are unemployed,” he said.

Nigeria’s unemployment rate recently hit a new record high at 33.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2020.

With the high unemployment rate, some have feared that many youths who are out of jobs might turn to social vices and ills including banditry in northern parts of the country.

Tinubu said “it is time” for the Buhari administration to address the situation so as to improve the standard of living of the citizens.

“Sovereignty is that of Nigeria and it is only the federal government that has that sovereign power and must use it for the benefit and development of Nigerians. That is why they are sovereign,” he said.

The APC leader also asked the federal government to embark on massive recruitment of Nigerian youths into the army.

He added that most of the youth should also go into agriculture, saying that “anybody who can handle a gun is technically competent to repair a tractor in the farm.”

“We create our food, that is money (for the farmers), consumption and skills development. Don’t call them illiterates,” he said.