Nigeria’s Woes : Ethnicity, Unemployment, Poverty

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Retired military officers defend incursion in governance Elders meet ahead of release of committees' list  Delegates want lunch monetized Chuks Okocha and Onyebuchi Ezigbo  Delegates to the ongoing national conference Thursday described the increasing rate of unemployment among the youths, poverty, declining rate of education, ethnicity and insecurity at all levels as a bad sign for Nigeria. They warned that these identified problems must be tackled in time as the country was sitting on a time bomb that could explode any time. Also, retired military officers, at the conference, defended the military's incursion in governance, stating that contrary to the popular opinion that the military forced its way into governance, they argued that the military was actually invited into governance by the Senate of the First Republic, in order to stabilise the polity due to the recklessness of the political class. At break time, over 37 elders from the conference, drawn from each state of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) met with Prince Ibrahim Gambari on how to ensure consensus at the conference. Already, labour and civil society delegates kicked against the decision of the conference to rejig the rules in appointing committee leaderships. The outcome of the closed-door meeting which took place at the Admin Block of the National Judicial Institute (NJI), was not known, but, it was at the instance of the Presidency, that wanted to ensure consensus at all times at the conference. The former Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqqayat Ahmed Rufai from Jigawa State, raised the motion that Nigeria was sitting on a time bomb.  She said that the bomb could explode any time because the youths are not happy because they are unemployed. She called on the conference to make recommendations that would reduce the dependency on oil and promote a sustainable agriculture that would bring back the good old days of the groundnut and cotton pyramids of the north and the cocoa and palm oil from the south, or else, there would be danger in the future because the youths are not happy and are not gainfully employed. Speaking on the same motion, Prof. Agboola Gambari from Ilorin, Kwara State, called for adequate attention to the growing unemployment in the country, especially among the youths. Gambari, who called for attitudinal and policy changes, lamented that youths unemployment had created a wide gap between the rich and the poor. continue