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Buhari’s Comment On Youths Shameful, Nigerians Lament …Nigerian Youth Not Lazy -PDP …Youths ’ll Vote Against Him -Fayose
Some Nigerian politicians have reacted to President Muhammadu Buhari’s comment that Nigerian youths are lazy.
Buhari, last Wednesday, during a panel discussion at the Commonwealth Business Forum in Westminster, London, said that many Nigerian youth are uneducated, not ready to work and dependent on revenue from oil to survive.
Buhari, who declared earlier in April that he was seeking re-election in 2019, said: “A lot of them haven’t been to school and they are claiming, you know, that Nigeria has been an oil producing country, therefore, they should sit and do nothing and get housing, health care, education, free”.
The comment touched the West Africa’s largest economy, which suffers from high unemployment and lacks basic government services, including running water and electricity.
Reacting to the comment, the former Vice President and chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and ex-Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, former aide to President Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri, among others, have taken a swipe at President Muhammadu Buhari for labelling Nigerian youths “uneducated and lazy,” describing the comment as shameful.
Atiku, a 2019 Presidential hopeful in a status update on his Facebook wall, yesterday, described Nigerian youths as enterprising and “The backbone to our success.”
While lauding their entrepreneurial spirit, Atiku said what the youths need is support and appreciation, adding that with a little push; they could match their counterparts anywhere in the world.
“I will never refer to Nigeria’s youths as people who sit and do nothing. They are hardworking. I should know, I have thousands of youths working for me all over the country who have been the backbone to our success.
“, I have always said oil is not Nigeria’s greatest asset. Our greatest asset is our youths, who created Nollywood out of nothing and an entertainment industry that is second to none in Africa.
“Our youth are charting new frontiers; creating a huge technology industry on their own. Their entrepreneurial spirit, work ethic, and creative abilities are things of pride and should be applauded, encouraged and nurtured,” Atiku said.
On his part, Fani-Kayode questioned the rationale in the President’s remark about his own people saying, “What type of leader takes pleasure in slandering, shaming, denigrating and humiliating his own people before the world? What type (sic) of man tells foreigners that his own children are lazy and unproductive?”
Also expressing dismay at the President’s uncomplimentary remarks is Reno Omokri.
“How can you in one breath say that your country’s youths are lazy and don’t want to work and in the next, you appeal to foreign investors to come and invest in Nigeria,?” he asked, noting that the Commander-in-Chief may have jeopardized his mission of attracting foreign investors into the country”, Omokri stated.
Similarly, the Action Democratic Party (ADP) says its attention has been drawn to the comments of President Muhammadu Buhari at the CHOGM held in London where the president described Nigerian youth as lazy and those who want to sit down and do nothing because they feel that Nigeria was an oil producing nation.
The ADP Publicity Secretary in Lagos, Prince Adeoye Adelaja, speaking during the commissioning of the party’s secretariat in Alimosho, yesterday, said that he was shocked that a president of a country can make such derogatory remarks about his fellow citizens; citizens that he swore an oath to make lives better for.
He said that, “at such a stage, it was expected of the president to use the opportunity to woo investors, clearly stating that Nigerian youth were equipped with skills that can help them make the best out of their investment but instead, our president decided to take a swipe at our young and vibrant population.”
The party says that “a country is assessed not by their old men but by their youth who are the strength and the builders of the said country.”
Adelaja also pointed out that “he is a youth and has seen how his fellow youth work menial jobs, put themselves through school and create wealth for themselves in a choking business environment like that of Nigeria presently under Buhari. “
He argued that “for a man who has supervised the loss of over 10 million jobs since 2015, the comments are even more insulting.
“I have never seen any group of people anywhere in the world more determined to make it against all odds than our youths,” Adelaja said.
Another presidential hopeful Adamu Garba said Buhari was being “humorous with our national pride”.
The common-sense Senator representing Bayelsa East constituency, Ben Murray Bruce said “anyone who calls Nigerian youth lazy has not seen things correctly”.
Bruce stated, “Whoever says Nigerian youths are lazy should just buy a mirror and he or she will see the real definition of laziness! I have over 1000 Nigerian youth in my employ and not one of them is lazy.”
“The government never created anything for me, I feed from my hustle and yet they say we are lazy,” said one tweet.
Some Nigerian youth, who reacted to the comment, accused the president of passing on the blame as usual, while others gave instances of their colleagues doing well without government support.
Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party has replied President Muhammadu Buhari, stating that Nigerian youths, by their demonstrated industry, cannot in any way be described by anybody as lazy.
It said Nigerians find it extremely shocking that President Buhari could make such comment and described it as false, derogatory and unpatriotic comment against Nigerian citizens at a time the nation was looking up to him to properly present its potential to the global business community.
President Buhari had while speaking during a panel discussion at the Commonwealth Business Forum in Westminster in London last Wednesday, described many Nigerian youths as lazy and not ready to work.
Rather, he said they were after what he called freebies.
But the main opposition party in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan in Abuja, yesterday, described the President’s outburst as alarming and shocking.
He said it was unfortunate that the President uses every opportunity of his international engagements to de-market the country.
“Here is a President, whose administration has in its three years of governance, contributed nothing towards providing opportunities for our youths and who has not initiated or implemented any development project or set up any industry to provide jobs for our aspiring youths.
“Here is a President under whose watch, factories and businesses have shut down resulting in over 24 million job losses and under whom no meaningful foreign direct investment has been attracted to the country.”
Ologbondiyan added that the President has been watching Nigeria youths struggling all over the country without doing anything to ameliorate their plight.
According to him, “Here is a President who daily watches Nigerian youths sweating on menial jobs under very strenuous conditions on the streets of Abuja, Jos, Lagos, Ibadan, Kano, Kaduna, Maiduguri, Bauchi, Calabar, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Onitsha and other major cities, yet he unsympathetically described them as lazy.
“These are the same set of Nigerians who, upon being afforded the right opportunities in other countries of the world, are known to have excelled in various fields of endeavour.
“Nigerians can now see that when the PDP accused President Buhari of de-marketing our nation, we were not playing politics.
“It is however saddening that after de-marketing his own generation, President Buhari is set to destroy the future of younger Nigerians.”
He said since the President has gone ahead to denigrate Nigerian youths, who he claimed form the bulk of the nation’s workforce as lazy and lovers of freebies, how could he expect any foreign investor to bring in investment into the country.
He said it was disheartening that these same youths were the same young persons who formed the highest demography of voters that put their confidence in the President in 2015.
In another development, the Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has called on youths in Nigeria to show President Muhammadu Buhari that they are not lazy and uneducated by voting against him in 2019.
Fayose said it is painful that the President could describe youths in Nigeria that are daily struggling to make a living under a harsh economy as lazy people.
Speaking through his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, the governor said: “Contrary to the morale-killing comment of the President, Nigerian youths are hardworking, intelligent and enterprising. Their future was mortgaged by past leaders like President Buhari, who had everything at their beck and call as youths. I imagine the youths of today having half of the opportunities available in the 50s and 60s.
“At 19, President Buhari left Secondary School to join the Army. At age 21 (two years in the army), he was commissioned a second lieutenant and appointed Platoon Commander of the Second Infantry Battalion in Abeokuta, Nigeria. Within his 24 years in the Army, the President was Governor of North Eastern State, Minister of Petroleum, Chairman of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and Head of State. Where can our youths get such opportunity today?
“Under his watch as Minister of Petroleum, N2.8 billion went missing from the accounts of the NNPC in Midlands Bank in the United Kingdom. That N2.8 billion as at that time is like $2.8 billion (over N1 trillion) now and here is he insulting the youths whose existence his likes mortgaged.”
While telling the President to stop de-marketing Nigeria and its people in foreign lands, Governor Fayose reminded Nigerians how he (Buhari) said in an interview with UK Telegraph in February 2016 that some Nigerians in the United Kingdom were disposed to criminality and should not be granted asylum there.
The governor, who insisted that the negative foundation the likes of President Buhari laid for Nigeria has made life impossible for the youths, asked: “As Military Governor of the North Eastern State, what difference did President Buhari make in the lives of youths in the North?”
He described Buhari as an analogue President, saying: “There is no connection between him and the youths because I doubt if he can even use common android phone. One can’t really blame the President; he does not understand what is obtainable in the country anymore. That’s the reason he was still seeing West Germany and Deutschmark in 2015.”
Urging the youths to use their votes to send President Buhari out of office in 2019, Governor Fayose said: “I did say before now that majority of the youths that voted for President Buhari in 2015 never knew who they were voting for because they did not experience him (Buhari) as a Military ruler.
Letters
Ban On Christians Fellowship In Universities
If the story making the rounds on two Nigerian universities being sued for allegation of their ban on Christian fellowship in the campus is anything to go by, then Nigeria is in for another trouble.
According to the story, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Katsina State branch, in conjunction with an American conservative Christian legal advocacy group, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF International), has instituted an action against two universities in Katsina State for indefinitely banning Christian groups from holding fellowship meetings and worship on campuses.
The suit was said to have been filed against the two universities for violating the right to religious freedom by “indefinitely prohibiting” Christian groups from holding fellowship meetings and worship on campus.
The Christian legal advocacy group further alleged that one of the universities enforced the ban by locking all worship and fellowship centre on university grounds, preventing Christian students and groups from accessing the facilities and banning them from meeting for worship and fellowship elsewhere on campus while their Muslim counterparts at both universities have been permitted to hold worship and fellowship meetings in university-constructed worship and meeting spaces.
Recall that in 2017, there was a news report on the outlaw of any other religious or tribal association on campus besides the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria by the authorities of the Umar Musa Yar’Adua University, Katsina, Katsina State. A circular credited to the institution’s acting Dean of Student Affairs, Dr. Sulaiman Kankara, which was later disowned by the university, contained the directive.
The last time I checked, Nigeria is a democratic, circular state where every individual is free to practise any religion of her choice. Section 38 of the Nigerian constitution provides: “Every person shall be entitled to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom (either alone or in community with others, and in public or in private) to manifest and propagate his religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance.”
It is therefore wrong for a public university to indulge in this discriminatory act. A university is supposed to be an intellectual environment where people should be allowed some level of freedom. There must be robust fellowship and inter-faith relationship. People must be able to relate with each other without any discrimination or stigmatisation.
Knowing how delicate issues on religion are in Nigeria, one hopes that the authorities of the institutions concerned should swiftly look into the report and retrace their steps. The court should be objective in deciding the case and give students of other religions some leverage of freedom. It must be stated that the judgment on this case should not be delayed to avoid any retaliation in other parts of the country.
We already have a lot of issues to deal with in the country. Adding a religious crisis to it could be disastrous. Any university established and funded by either the federal, state or local government, should have freedom of religion. Let there be no more trouble in the country, please.
Waheed Abiodun,
Victoria Street,
Port Harcourt Township.
The NIMC, NCC Partnership
Reports have it that the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) and Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) disclosed that they have partnered to enhance seamless linkage of National Identification Number-SIM across the federation.
Both Commissions said that in recognising the significance of this initiative in enhancing security and improving service delivery, they were committed to improving processes and enhancing efficiency.
This is a welcome development. It has been worrisome why Nigerians should be made to go through the rigorous process of linking their National Identification Number (NIN) with their phone numbers every now and then. Some people who engage in online transactions have recorded some losses over the past few weeks as some internet providers barred their lines due to their inability to successfully do the linkage.
Two weeks ago, I went to a High Court for an official engagement and was shocked to see the number of people seeking to get court affidavits for the linkage of the NIN with the phone numbers so that their line will be unbarred.
It is therefore hoped that the NIMC, NCC partnership will remove all the bottlenecks surrounding the Nin, SIM linkage and make the process very seamless. It is also hoped that this will be the beginning of the process of proper identity management in the country and gradual collapse of all the various forms of identification – Drivers Licence, Voters Card, NIMC card. Bank cards etc into one identity card so that one would not have to be moving around with loads of identity cards.
Ebele Ubani,
Jabi, Abuja.
The Unwanted Strike
Just when the students of Nigeria public universities are rejoicing that there had been a no interruption in the universities’ academic calendar for sometiime, the news about the warning strike by the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, (SSANU), broke.
The Joint Action Committee of the two organisations had directed members to commence a seven day warning strike last week, following the federal government’s inability to pay their four months’ withheld salary.
I do not even understand why the government should allow labour unions to down tools before acting on their demands. Did President Bola Tinubu not direct that university workers that were on prolonged strike in 2022 and their salaries stopped by the Muhammadu Buhari’s administration after the invocation of “No Work, No Pay” policy, should be paid four months of the withheld salaries?
Have members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) not been paid in line with the president’s directive? Why were SSANU, NASU and unions concerned not paid? These bodies issued an ultimatum to the federal government. Why was there no effort to address their grievances within the window period?
It is said that what is good for the goose is also good for the gander. So, the government, having paid ASUU, should also endeavour to settle SSANU and NASU so that there shall be no interruption in our academic calendar. We did no wrong by choosing public universities. Government, ASUU, SSANU, NASU and what have you should let us learn in peace and graduate at the record time like our colleagues in private universities, please.
IB Michael,
University of Port Harcourt,
Port Harcourt.
Letters
Obi Should Do More, Discordant Tunes On Minimum Wage, Akpabio’s Unguarded Comment
Obi Should Do More
The Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 election, Mr Peter Obi, has continued to voice out his opinion on the happenings in the country. On the budget padding scandal currently rocking the upper chamber of the National Assembly, he has told the Senate to provide Nigerians with some explanations on the matter.
He said the claims and counter-claims over the alleged N3 Trillion which was alleged by Senator Abdul Ningi to have been padded into the 2024 budget, requires proper explanation as to what Nigerians must need to know regarding management of the nation’s, insisting that the suspension of Senator Ningi for three months does not address the issue.
The Labour party chieftain had also expressed his concern over the hunger in the country a few days ago. He raised the alarm that Nigerians were spending all their money on food.
It is commendable of Obi to have stood with the masses at this critical time in the nation’s history and be critical of negative happenings in the country and bad government policies. However, Obi should do more than just criticising. It is said that “a tree cannot make a forest”. Therefore, Obi should galvanise all the law makers both on the national and state levels to tow the same line with him, which should be seen as the position of the Labour Party.
In 2023, there was a revolution in the country. People of all walks of life, of various religions and tribes trouped out in support of the labour party because they believed in Mr Peter Obi. People saw the Labour Party as a needed alternative to the two most populous political parties, PDP and APC. Based on Obi’s personality and popularity, some people who ordinarily would not have won councillorship positions in their communities were elected into state and national assemblies. Many of them won the elections for free, spending no shi shi.
Painfully, after assuming the exalted positions, many of them, especially those in the national assembly seem to have forgotten the masses. It is now business as usual. Among the seven senators and 36 House of Representative members of the Labour Party in the National Assembly, which one of them has moved a strong motion about the hardship currently being faced by the masses and how to address it? How many of them stood by Senator Ningi on the budget padding revelation? What out the exotic cars distributed to them, how many of them advised that they should go for less expensive cars and the excess money channelled into developmental projects? It has become a case of one not talking while on the dining table, right?
Obi should be able to organise his party to form a formidable opposition and a party that does things differently, a party that stands with the people. If the labour party elected political office holders carry on the way they have done since they came into office, they will keep de-marketing their party, forgetting that 2027 is just around the corner.
Ngozi Omeje,
Umuahia, Abia State.
Discordant Tunes On Minimum Wage
I have followed the discussion on the proposed new minimum wage with keen interest and I just hope the leadership of the organised labour will be firm enough to represent the workers and refuse to fall prey to the ploy to disunite them.
It is disheartening seeing workers come up with different amounts as the proposed minimum wage. While the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, demanded that South-West states should pay N794,000 the Trade Union Congress, TUC, asked for N447,000. Similarly, workers in the Federal Capital Territory demanded N709,000, while their counterparts in the North-West clamoured for N485,000.
This idea of singing in discordant tunes is not good for strong unionism. I recall my days as a civil servant in Ibadan, Oyo state. That was during the time of Adams Oshiomhole as the National President of the NLC. The labour union was a force to be reckoned with and whenever the workers barked, the government caught cold. The increase in workers’ wages was fought for as body. There was nothing like federal workers going to the left and the state workers going to the right. Of course then, in 2000, the TUC did not exist as a separate body. The entire workers spoke in unison.
Yes, the states did reserve the right to say whether they can pay the national minimum wage or not but the national body of the NLC was carried along in the negotiation. Please, the NLC and TUC should come together and present a common front in the new minimum wage quest and ensure that workers in the states also get a fair deal. If not, some of the greedy governors will continue to subject the workers to hardship.
Pa Micheal Adeniran,
Rumuogba Housing Estate, Port Harcourt.
Akpabio’s Unguarded Comment
“Today, he’s responding to a remark by the Governor that has nothing to do with him. The opposition is urging the Senate president to be mindful of his utterances. How can he turn the burial of late Access Bank CEO, Herbert Wigwe, wife and first son, such a sad moment, to a political attack?. It’s disappointing. That’s political recklessness taken too far. We, the opposition parties, won’t tolerate such utterances anymore if it continues.”
Above was the response of a member of the House of Representatives and Chairman, House Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), Hon. Ikenga Ugochinyere, to the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, unguarded remark on Gov. Siminalayi Fubara’s comment during the burial of the late Access Holdings Plc GCEO, Herbert Wigwe, wife and first son last weekend.
It is hoped that Akpabio will heed to the advice and learn how to talk in public. Tracing his character as a public servant and political office holder in various capacities over the years, one would notice that the senate president lacks the act of public speaking and carriage.
Was it not recently that he announced that the clerk of the house had sent money to each of the senators’ personal account for their holiday enjoyment only to be called to other and he changed it to ”In order to allow you to enjoy your holiday, the senate president has sent prayers to your mailboxes to assist you to go on a safe journey and return.” What about the “honourable minister off your mic” shameful display.
Whoever wants to die seeking public/political office should go ahead but leave our dear governor alone.
Loveth Opusunju
Minima, Opobo, Rivers State.
Featured
Fubara Promises Rivers Support For Wigwe Varsity …Cautions Political Class On Power Tussle
Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, has promised the state government’s commitment to supporting Wigwe University.
Fubara disclosed this on Saturday after the funeral service of the late Chief Executive Officer of Access Holdings Plc, Herbert Wigwe, in Isiokpo, Ikwerre Local Government Area of Rivers State.
Wigwe, alongside his wife, Doreen, and son, Chizzy, died in a helicopter crash in California near the Nevada border, United States of America.
Also involved in the crash was the Chairman of Nigerian Exchange Group Plc, Abimbola Ogunbanjo.
The governor said, “I want to say our brother has finished his work, though short. We, as a government, will do everything with the Wigwe Foundation to immortalise one thing.
“It is not the bank, the bank might have a new identity, a new boss to run it, other ventures will also have their names; but one thing that has his name is Wigwe University.
“We will do everything within our power to make sure the dream will continue to live just as he has planned it.”
Fubara questioned the mourners as to why they kept chasing worldly desires, stressing the significance of impacting lives rather than struggling for power.
“This one has to do with the political class, what is all these struggle all about? You want to kill, you want to bury, what is it all about?
“This is a man who was not a politician, he made his money through our investments, he had the world in his palm financially, he controlled even the political classes; but today, with all the power financially couldn’t control life. Is it not enough to ask ourselves why are we struggling? Why are we not making an impact on the lives of our people?” he queried.
Dignitaries present at the funeral service include the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio; Chairman, Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote; former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria , Sanusi Lamido; Governors Alex Otti (Abia) Dapo Abiodun (Ogun), and Babajide Sawwo-Olu (Lagos).
Other dignitaries are former governors Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti), Peter Obi (Anambra), Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers), Bukola Saraki (Kwarra), and James Ibori (Delta), among others.
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