The Secretary, Agege Local Government, Lagos State, Gbenga Abiola, on Tuesday said that the problem of youth unemployment needs to be tackled in order to check the rising level of crime and insecurity in the country.
Mr Abiola, in a statement in Lagos, said that government across levels to take more practical steps towards tackling the problem, to provide platform for nation’s growth.
“The security of every country is key to its success in every sector.
“When the security of a country fails, every other sector which include economic, political, financial, infrastructural, to mention a few, record limited growth.
“One of the major propelling factors of insecurity and crime is youth unemployment, and until government prioritises this, we’ll go nowhere as a nation,” Mr Abiola said.
According to him, the failure of the nation to foresee this danger in the last two decades is the cause of the current challenges threatening its survival.
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He said there was the need to tackle the menace of unemployment frontally to secure a better future.
Mr Abiola also called for restructuring of university and technical education.
The scribe said that over 150 universities in the country churned out about three million graduates all together annually into the already congested labour market, with only few getting jobs.
“It simply means that in the last 10 years, we have produced over 20 million unemployed graduates into the labour market, and we should not also forget that only about 25 per cent of secondary school graduates get into these Universities.
“What then happened to the rest of the 75% that dropped out at secondary school level? Where did they go? Where are they hiding?”
According to him, if nothing is done, this number will keep increasing, with the threat of insecurity become higher.
He called for investment in infrastructure development, creation of enabling environment for small and medium enterprises, and empowerment.
Mr Abiola said that buying more guns for armed forces would not reduce the nation’s security challenges, but pragmatic steps towards reducing level of unemployment.
“I applaud the intentions behind the N-POWER programme by this administration but I think it’s not a complete process. I believe the N-Power project is not hitting the right target,” he said.
NAN
