By Kenneth Onuoha
The African Heritage Institution, a socio-economic and political research institution, has called on the various levels of government to do more in empowering youths to stem restiveness and poverty.
The Executive Director of the institution, Prof. Ufo Okeke-Uzodike, made the call on Tuesday while briefing newsmen on the forthcoming Big Idea Podium Conference in Enugu on Tuesday.
The conference, which will hold on Dec. 1, is themed: “#EndSARS Protest: Rethinking Nigerian Youths and Government Policies’’.
Okeke-Uzodike noted that it was expected that state and local government areas must put additional resources or if possible channel most of their resources to empowering the youths to check restiveness, crime and other vices.
According to him, Nigeria has the most youthful population in the world, with a median age of 18 years and one month; and most youths fall between the ages of 18 and 29 years in the country.
He noted that such a large population in a national population of over 200 million people can never be ignored to remain in joblessness, idleness and poverty; if things are to go right for the entire population.
“#EndSARS protest underscores the lack of serious commitment to the youths in Nigeria as reflected by the dearth of transformative youths development initiatives.
“Sadly, government programmes – N-POWER, YOU-WIN, National Youth Development Fund, NYSC etc – have largely failed to achieve their stated objectives as they are either terminated, unstable or comatose, while those that are still functional are far from fulfilling their mandated objectives.
“So, there is a need for a more sustainable and pragmatic approach to youths empowerment that should be championed at the state and local council levels to truly get to the youths in their localities and make the localities become economically vibrant for them.
“At this stage, the governors will do better if they channel the resources within their month security vaults allowance to fund direct empowerment programmes and provide credit to thousands of our youths within their localities.
“This, will definitely, have a multiplier effect on job creation, wealth creation, reduction in crime and vices within our entire localities and communities,’’ he said.
The executive director noted that the conference would further x-ray other multi-sectoral approaches to get every single Nigerian youth, whether educated or not, out of the street to gainful and sustainable employment especially self-employment opportunities.
“The country cannot afford to treat with levity the issue of youths’ unemployment, restiveness and lack of inclusiveness in governance if we are to have peace in the country as we move forward,’’ he said.
He said that the conference would be held both physically by observing strict COVID-19 Protocols as well as visually via zoom platform for resource persons and participants within and outside the country.