The Federal Government may have to speed up the process of providing jobs for the ever-increasing number of youths in the country, if it will ever curb the high rate of crime and other acts of youth restiveness.
Presiding bishop of Rhema Christian Church and Towers, Bishop Taiwo Akinola, at a world press conference on the church’s 2020 World Convention, themed “Abundant Rain”, which commenced yesterday, said the recent events in the land have further shown that more Nigerian youths were not gainfully employed or involved in any positive activities to take care of their needs.
He said, “The statistics given on youth unemployment put at 55.4 per cent has not decreased but rather has increased. As a church committed to the progress of our dear country and the citizens, we are concerned that the rising rate of unemployment in Nigeria has remained unabated over the years.
“We observed that this critical situation has needlessly resulted in some youths taking to crimes such as kidnapping, armed robbery, internet fraud as well as being ready tools in the hands of insurgents, politicians and sponsors of communal crisis.”
Akinola said there could be no better time for this to be aparent than the recent events in the country.
He stated that the church viewed the development not only as a by-product of lack of fear of God, but also of gross disparity inherent in the nation’s planning and haphazard execution of projects aimed at generating employment that should absorb the numerous youths and young graduates being turned out annually by tertiary institutions.
“We are, therefore, urging this administration to, please, arise to the necessary duty of fulfilling its promise of generating jobs as one of its cardinal projects to empower the youths and make them productive for the advancement of the country,” he said.
On the recent protest by the youths under the umbrella of #EndSARS, the clegyman said the protest was not only a protest on a narrow issue, but an appropriate and incontrovertible response from a generation that was growing up under peculiar and unusually stressful circumstances.
According to him, “People of my generation in particular should all take this as a sign of failure, our failure, ineptitude, our ineptitude, as adults, as leaders.
“I love and respect our security services, and appreciate the work that they do. I also recognise that they are also, in some respects, victims of a broken system that is the inevitable product of decades of poor governance.”
He called on the nation’s leaders of today to take decisive, meaningful action to protect the leaders of tomorrow, stating that cosmetic changes will simply not suffice anymore, but rather real changes must be made and justice served where due.
Akinola said the year 2020 has been one with unusual circumstances, hence, the church is holding the week-long programme to pray for the restoration of the country.