Obasanjo expresses fear over youths’ unemployment in Nigeria

Chief Obasanjo

The former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has expressed fears that a time will come when Nigeria will witness a revolution if government fails to address youths’ unemployment and poverty.

Speaking recently at the West African regional conference on youth employment in Dakar, Senegal the former president said the growing rate of unemployment among youths is alarming that the effects can only be imagined.

He asserted that there is absence of serious, concrete, realistic, short and long term solution to youth unemployment. He revealed that the youth employment rate which was at 72 per cent in 1999 was reduced to 52 per cent in 2004 and as at 2011 was at 71 per cent again.

Incentives to be created by national leaders according to Obasanjo should include a special attention to agriculture business as against mere farming.

Obasanjo said there is need for easy access to land and micro credit, and the need to review the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) in order to accommodate issues around youth unemployment and job creation.

He also advocated the review of school curriculum to enable undergraduates spend additional one year to learn entrepreneurship.

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