Federal Government is set to Recruit 50million youth into Army over insecurity in Nigeria.
The NATIONAL leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former Lagos State governor, Senator Bola Tinubu has decried that bandits continue to cash in on huge unemployment in the country to recruit many young Nigerians, as he called for the recruitment of 50 million youths into the Nigerian Army and the police. Speaking on Monday during the 12th Asiwaju Bola Tinubu Colloquium held in Kano, the former Lagos State governor noted that it is expedient for political leaders to create jobs for Nigerian youths if the nation is to experience rest from banditry and other forms of criminality.
Pointing to the 33 per cent unemployment rate among the youth, which he described as disturbing, Tinubu said there is an urgent need for the country to recruit 50 million youths into the Nigerian Army and the police, so as to reduce joblessness among the youth.
Failure to address unemployment, he noted, will continue to allow bandits to take advantage and recruit young Nigerians for peanuts.
He maintained that massive job creation is a disincentive that will demobilise the youth and deplete the source of manpower for the terror group, Boko Haram.
He kicked against the prevailing austerity measures to discourage spending and ad- vised the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to learn from the United States which, he noted, has spent trillions on infrastructure renewal and has not stopped spending, since it will ultimately stimulate growth in the economy.
While he submitted that a stable economy will inspire security of lives and property, the former Lagos State governor maintained that once there is an enabling environment for economic activities to thrive, the agitation by Nigerian youths would have been substantially addressed while source of a readymade army for bandits would have been taken away from them.
He appealed to the Federal Executive Council and the National Assembly to devise programmes that would create jobs rather than constrain public spending.