by Isi Esene
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has expressed fears at the alarming rate of unemployment in the country saying the danger is “real and potent”.
While speaking at the West African regional conference on youth employment in Dakar, Senegal during the weekend, Obasanjo predicted a revolution unless urgent measures are taken to halt the growing youth unemployment and poverty in Nigeria.
“I’m afraid, and you know I am a General. When a General says he is afraid, that means the danger ahead is real and potent,” he said.
He reportedly took a swipe at the present administration saying, “There is absence of serious, concrete, realistic, short and long term solution to youth unemployment.”
Obasanjo said the Nigerian youth have been patient enough and he is afraid that the patience is running thin.
He gave statistics saying the youth unemployment rate which was 72 per cent in 1999 when he took over power had been reduced to 52 per cent by 2004, but that the rate rocketed to 71 per cent by 2011.
The former president said the unemployment challenge necessitated the emergence of three categories of the Nigerian youth he described as “area boys, Yahoo boys and, recently, Blackberry boys”.
He told the audience that in Nigeria people talk of growth without corresponding development, and that what is visible is increased poverty.
The conference, which was sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the African Development Bank, was attended by top bankers from across Africa including the managing director of Nigeria’s Bank of Industry, Evelyn Oputu.
While l commend Pres Obasanjo for showing the courage to say this in far away Dakar about the youth of a country he led for 8 years,l might quickly say that the bulk of the blame should go to him for some of his obnoxious policies and lack of deep vision while he held sway in the office,and for foistering on us a President that lacks the knowledge and experience of what nation building is all about.However,this is a wake up call to all of us Nigerian Youths to come together and use our strength, our articulation and our numerical strength to begin to demand for our rights from our political office holders both at the various state government houses and seat of power in Abuja.