Nigeria sitting on keg of gunpowder, says Obasanjo
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Friday expressed fear over what he described as keg of gunpowder of large army of unemployed youth in Nigeria, which is not a good signs for the country.
Penpushing reports that, Obasanjo expressed the concern this while delivering paper at 2022 Emeritus Professor Oyewusi Ibidapo-Obe symposium with the theme, “Viewing the World Through the Lens of Big Data”, held at Civic Centre, Lagos, stressing that the situation is scary, particularly when it pop up in his mind
“Three clusters of questions pop up in my mind any time the scary thoughts of the ever-increasing population kept me awake at night. The first cluster is: how are we going to feed this exploding population? How are we going to house them; educate them, provide them with health security and other variants of human security?”,he noted.
Penpushing further reports that, Obasanjo accompanied by his wife, Bola Obasanjo to the event expressed concern on how to keep the youths away from enlisting in violent extremists groups and in gang of kidnappers
“The second cluster of questions is: how do we keep this keg of gunpowder of the large army of unemployed youth from exploding? How do we keep them from enlisting in violent extremists’ groups and in gangs of kidnappers? The third cluster of questions is: how can Africa attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Agenda 2063 in a turbulent sea of exploding, not-well-managed populations?”, he emphasized.
“While these clusters of questions are frightening, they would appear to have an elegantly simple solution- political will and political action to make population an asset. This is the master key of a sort! I am sure you noticed that this “key” has two elements- the will and the action”,he stated.
“It is not enough to shroud political will in mere political rhetoric and sloganeering but translating such will into concrete, measurable actions with visible impact on the ground” Obasanjo added.
The former president also pointed out that African governments should not ignore the overwhelming evidence that the failure of leadership to apply a set of hard choices on population management is encumbering progress in the continent.
“For the avoidance of doubt, APG is not queuing behind the proposition for policies such as one child or two per family as we have in some regions of the world. Our position is rested on the belief that population, large or small, can be harnessed as asset rather than becoming a burden or a liability”, he stated.
“Besides, the variability in socio-cultural positions on family planning by different African communities should be respected but properly managed. Africa’s growing population if well managed will yield huge dividends for national and regional development”, Obasanjo added.
“The population-induced challenges facing Africa today, cannot be allowed to metastasise. Since the report was released on August 17, 2021, APG has been reaching out to all African leaders, the public and private sector, the academia, and all stakeholders and friends of Africa to join hands in plumbing the depths of the options in the report and applying them as appropriate in their different contexts.
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