…Youth Confab Will Be Useless, Implement 2014 Nat’l Confab — MBF
…It Is Designed To Divert Attention From Bad Governance, Says Pearse
…Revisit Report Of Past Confab, C’ttees, Forget Youth Confab– Shelle
…Youths Must Be Heard, Concerns Addressed, But Crash PMS Price — Sagay
…Speech Empty, Confirmation Of Tinubu’s Insensitivity, Says PDP
Mixed reactions on Tuesday trailed President Bola Tinubu’s Independence anniversary speech, especially his plan to convoke a 30-day National Youth Conference in the country.
While some respondents hailed and described it as timely, others said it is aimed at diverting attention from bad governance.
They asked the president that instead of convening a conference on youths, whose report may not be implemented after all, he should implement the 2014 national confab.
President Bola Tinubu had on Tuesday, October 1, during his nationwide broadcast to mark Nigeria’s 64th Independence anniversary, announced the gathering of a National Youth Conference.
According to him, the conference will be a platform to address the diverse challenges and opportunities confronting young people, who he said constitute more than 60 percent of our population.
“It (the conference) will provoke meaningful dialogue and empower our young people to participate actively in nation-building. By ensuring that their voices are heard in shaping the policies that impact their lives, we are creating a pathway for a brighter tomorrow.
“The 30-day confab will unite young people nationwide to collaboratively develop solutions to issues such as education, employment, innovation, security, and social justice. The modalities of this confab and selection of delegates will be designed in close consultation with our young people through their representatives. Through this confab, it will be our job as leaders to ensure that their aspirations are at the heart of the conference’s deliberations. The government will thoroughly consider and implement the recommendations and outcomes from this forum as we remain resolute in our mission to build a more inclusive, prosperous, and united Nigeria”, the president said.
Reacting, the Middle Belt Forum (MBF) disagreed with President Tinubu’s position on the convocation of a National Youth Conference. Instead it asked the president to implement the 2014 national confab.
The socio-cultural and political organisation in a chat with Daily Independent by its National Publicity Secretary, Dr. Isuwa Dogo, said, “If you bring all the youths from across the country, will it bring about employment? What we need is not the convocation of the National Youth Conference that won’t bring employment. It won’t remove insecurity, it won’t remove all the calamities that we’re facing.
“In the first place we already know the solution to all the problems, it’s implementing the solutions and not finding the solutions. We know the solution of every single problem that we have in Nigeria, so what we need is implementation.
“We’ve said it many times, implement the 2014 National Confab. In the first place, bringing youths from 36 states of the country, within 30 days won’t bring about any solution. Implementing the 2014 National Confab is the way to go. Whatever is left after that we’ll find a solution to.
“They shouldn’t go on wasting our resources to bring youths from across the country to just sit down and do nothing.”
He added, “Didn’t the president set up a committee of about 800 people, and an economic team? Have they come out with one single solution to the Nigeria problems?”
While reacting to the president’s speech on insecurity, the Forum said, “If he said they’ve neutralised 300 Boko Haram and bandits’ leaders, since they can be easily replaced it doesn’t mean much as long as insecurity remains.
“If they neutralise 300 leaders, another 300 leaders will emerge. Remember the leaders are not even the ones doing the real jobs. So those who are doing the real jobs will simply take over. What we want is to see insecurity eliminated completely. It’s not today they started talking about that. Remember two rival groups of Boko Haram, both leaders were killed. In fact, one killed the other, and himself later died. Did it stop insecurity? So what we want is for insecurity to be completely eliminated,” Dogo added.
On his part, Dr. Adetokunbo Pearse, Public Affairs Analyst and Convener, Reset Lagos Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and member PDP National Presidential Campaign Council in the 2023 election faulted the speech, saying that it is designed to divert attention from bad governance.
Pearse told Daily Independent that the president claims the economy is doing well when the facts show that inflation at 35% is the highest in history, and the naira exchanging at N1,500 to one American dollar is at its weakest in living memory, shows that the address is deceitful.
He said, “The president claims that foreign investment is rising when we all know that his draconian tax policy is driving investors away from Nigeria on a daily basis, forcing companies into bankruptcy at record rates. As a consequence, unemployment is at a record high.
“The claim that ‘over 300 Boko Haram and bandit commanders have been eliminated’ is preposterous. Recently, when the Israeli government eliminated Hamas leaders, it announced the names of those eliminated as well as how and when this was done. The reason we were not told anything about this fictitious elimination of Boko Haram terrorists until today is because nothing of such happened.
“In any case, Nigerians know that in reality this government has failed to combat the menace of kidnapping, armed robbery and terrorism. We all know that students in their hostels, well-to-do citizens in their posh estates, traditional rulers in their palaces as well as government officials have all been victims. No one is safe and no location is secure. The security situation is so bad that a Financial Times of London report of 13th March 2024 warned that Nigeria is fast descending to the level of a failed state.”
He added, “The president’s announcement of a National Youth Conference which will take place for 30 days is arguably the most disingenuous and irresponsible proposal from him to date. A dialogue that would take place for a whole month will destroy its purpose ab initio. If the young person taking part is a student, he or she would miss class for a whole month. If the youth delegate is employed, he would miss work for 30 days, and if he is seeking employment, he would miss his opportunity to find work.
“The president’s purpose it seems is to host a carnival during which time he would politicise the programme; recruit the young people for his 2027 campaign and provide them with financial incentives, that is to bribe them with offers that they can’t refuse.”
A Lagos-based human rights lawyer, Kabir Akingbolu, stated that what President Tinubu proposed, especially the national youth conference, is not anything too different or radically different from what it used to be or what we used to have.
According to him, enough of all these theoretical policies that cannot transform to practical reality or practical development.
“You talk about having, maintaining a 37 billion US dollar foreign reserve, I don’t think that is an achievement. You have only increased it with 1 billion dollars. I would have been thinking with all your savings from oil money, one would have expected the money to have doubled, the foreign reserve to have doubled. And again, all these policies, which one are you doing that can have an impact on the value of the naira. If the value of the naira does not appreciate, whatever you do is nothing. Because in a country where you are earning N70,000 minimum wage and a bag of rice is N100,000. How do you cope? You pay school fees, you pay for a house,” Akingbolu said.
Youths Must Be Heard, Their Concerns Addressed — Sagay
However, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), human rights lawyer and former head of the Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption, hailed the plan of Tinubu to convene a national youth conference.
While speaking to Daily Independent on the importance of such conference given that the future, he noted, belongs to the youths, the eminent lawyer said it is timely to have a dialogue wholly involving the youths, however, warning that it won’t be just to hear the youths, passionately appealing that they should chart the way forward while the government should be ready to implement their resolutions.
Professor Sagay said; “If the Federal Government will convene a youth conference, then let the youths make recommendations. They are the ones whose future is at stake right now.
“It is a good idea and hearing from youths directly will be very wonderful. They are the future of Nigeria.
“It will not just be to hear the youths speak, efforts should be made to take some of the issues they will raise because it is about them and their future as future leaders.
“Such issues should be looked at holistically and should be adopted and implemented as well. Just having a youth confab and hearing their views is not enough. Their issues and concerns should be addressed in such confab by taking issues raised, adopting them and then using them,” he said.
On the president’s assurance of energy transition through Compressed Natural Gas and the adoption of the Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas for mass transit, Professor Sagay applauded the efforts but said the immediate need should have been to crash the price of petrol which would affect the entire nation instantly.
“The initiative is quite alright but I think what the president should do right now is to crash the price of petrol no matter at what cost it can come to the Federal Government. He should not wait on this.
“If we have been producing petrol internally as we are doing now, totally for the population of Nigeria, we don’t need to import. By the time you remove the cost of transport, taxes and other charges etc, involved in the importation, the price of petrol will come down to the level it was before subsidy was removed.
“I think that should have been an area he should have looked at without waiting for any economic metrics. The CNG is good but it may not serve the entire nation right now, so crashing the petrol price would have been the right message.
“It would have removed the unpleasant economic consequences that we are facing right now. It will greatly benefit Nigerians and it will hasten the call to make sure that other refineries aside Dangote Refinery will come on board and through that, we will have no need to import fuel.
“This would positively affect the price of foods in the market. I am happy with food interventions from the government, also the Lagos State government. They have been selling foods at subsidised prices to citizens; I am a beneficiary of this and I thank the Lagos State governor; I hope other states are doing the same,” he said.
Meanwhile, Capt. Tunji Shelle, a PDP chieftain and former chairman of the party in Lagos State, said the proposed youth conference may likely not serve any purpose as it may end up being an avenue to create further jobs for the boys.
While agreeing with the president on the counter insurgency efforts, applauding the military in this regard, Shelle said the money for such a conference should be channeled towards building industries for the youths, questioning the criteria for selecting the attendees.
“To be honest, the military has done their bit in pushing the insurgents in the North and with the new arsenal they have acquired, they will do more because they have been doing a lot of bombardment.
“While it may be hard to specifically say the number of successes they have recorded, it is right to say that the tempo of insurgency has gone down.
“But it is not yet something worth celebrating; we have to continue to support the military,” he said.
On the National Youth Conference, he said; “It’s like the government of APC wants to create jobs for the boys.
“The boys in APC will now be gathered and they will go and sit down somewhere and enjoy themselves at the end of the day.
“Tell me what can they or the proposed national conference achieve over a period of a month?
“The question is who and who will attend such a conference? What is the criteria for selecting the attendees?
“What is the yardstick for selecting the people who will articulate ideas that will benefit the youths? Who will be responsible in selecting them and identifying the core needs of the youths?
“Such conferences had taken place in the past but failures lie in the questions above while some results are left unattended.
“Why can’t the government revisit such conferences held before because some of the results are lying in the archives.
“Remember that the El-Rufai committee did a very beautiful job that addressed challenges facing adults, youths and the elderly; the government can revisit such instead of wasting money on something I know won’t produce any meaningful result.
“Is it because the youths are rising up today for protests over the poor management of the economy that they are now coming up with this measure?
“I won’t be surprised if they just handpick people who will do their bidding in the name of a youth conference where they are expectedly going to spend a huge amount of money.
“Can’t they use the money they are going to spend to build industries and capacity mechanisms for the youths?”
Speech Empty, Confirmation Of Tinubu’s Insensitivity — PDP
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described the 64th Independence day speech by President Bola Tinubu as empty and confirmation of the president’s insensitivity to Nigerians’ plight.
The party also described the speech as another lethargic and windy rhetoric of false performance claims and empty promises ostensibly scripted to delude Nigerians in the face of abysmal failure of the APC administration.
PDP, in a statement by its spokesman Hon. Debo Ologunagba, said that Nigerians were appalled that the president’s speech was a complete waste of time as it did not address issues or proffer any solution to the myriads of economic and security problems created by the APC government.
“President Tinubu has by this speech further confirmed the insensitivity of his administration towards the plight and demands by Nigerians which clearly authenticates PDP’s position that there is no hope in sight under the overtly clueless, insensitive and unresponsive APC-led government.
“The failure of the speech to respond to the cries of millions of Nigerians that President Tinubu eases their suffering by reviewing life-suffocating policies of his government also validates concerns in the public space of an emerging totalitarianism where certain individuals or group of individuals are benefitting from the travail of the people.
“It is indeed shocking that Mr. President’s speech practically trivialised the very grave issues of pervasive economic hardship, unemployment, acute poverty, widespread hunger and starvation in our country- for which Nigerians took to the streets in August this year- by claiming that about 10% of Nigerians have been plunged into hunger when confirmed reports show that over 100 million Nigerians can no longer afford their daily meals and other basic necessities of life under the APC watch.”
(Daily Independent)
