Former Lagos state Governor, and National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, has called on the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government to authorize the immediate recruitment of up to 50 million young Nigerians into the Nigerian Army to tackle the Boko Haram and criminal bandits destroying the country.
Tinubu on Monday argued that such action would overwhelm the terrorist groups of insurgents and bandits terrorizing the country across Nigeria.
“We are under-policed and we are competing with armed robbers and bandits to recruit from the youths who are unemployed —33 per cent unemployed?” Mr Tinubu said at his 69th birthday celebration which was held in Kano on Monday. “Recruit 50 million youths into the army.”
The National Bureau of Statistics reported that over 25 million out of Nigeria’s 200 million people are without jobs, a record high of 33 per cent.
In his address, Mr Tinubu suggested that education and literacy were not important to the recruitment process, rather it should be based on the willingness to fight criminals.
He said: “Don’t talk about illiteracy, anybody who can hold a gun, who can handle a gun, who can cock and shoot is technically competent to repair a tractor in the farm.”
He added that the government should create opportunities in agriculture to stem the unemployment rate, marking a repeat of the statement he made at the 2021 Sardauna Memorial Lecture on Saturday in Kaduna.
Speaking at the event Dani Rodrik of the Ford Foundation said democracy goes beyond just elections, noting that only restraints that enforce civil liberties, rule of law and non-discrimination in the provision of public goods can birth a liberal democracy.
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