The Peoples Democratic Party chieftain, representing Osun East Senatorial District at the National Assembly, Senator Francis Fadahunsi, has said many idle, highly educated youths are all over Nigeria engaging in criminal activities including banditry and kidnapping.
He said they are targeting the elite and the ruling class who they accused of mismanaging the nation’s economy and caused terrible unemployment.
Fadahunsi, who retired as the Deputy Comptroller of the Nigeria Customs Service, stated this in an interview with journalists in Abuja yesterday.
He said the worsening insecurity in Nigeria was not being caused by the foreign Fulani alone.
The Deputy Chairman, Senate Committee on Customs and Excise further alleged that educated young Nigerians are forming kidnapping gangs targeting the elite, the rich and those in government at all levels.
He said investigations had revealed that the young Nigerians having failed to make government improve the situation after the end-SARS protests in 2020, were now taking laws in their hands.
He said the youth were protesting against elite flagrant display of affluence, corruption and rot in the education, healthcare sector.
He said, “Education is no longer within the reach of the poor any longer. The sons and daughters of the poor who were going to public schools are no longer getting quality education because government had refused to fund public education.
” Regrettably, the children of the elite are going abroad to study while those who could not afford foreign education enrolled their children in high fee paying private schools from primary to tertiary.
“Meanwhile, there are many idle youths who are prone to criminality because they are into drugs and are taking up arms against the elite and their children in form of kidnapping.
“There is a case of unemployment galore because children of the poor who are graduates of higher institutions could not get a white collar job in public establishments which had been flooded with sons and daughters of the rich and the elite.
“Employment slots in federal agencies had been reserved exclusively for the children of the elite.
“Automatically university graduates from poor homes are engaging in menial jobs and criminality while the talented ones embraced the entertainment industry where they had to use drugs to suppress complex.
“The Head of Service had also compounded the crisis by placing embargo on employments.
“The sons and daughters of the poor are therefore, highly frustrated while those of the rich are returning from overseas after their education to take appointment in the best health institutions and other federal establishments.”
Fadahunsi explained that children of the poor who managed to travel abroad are now sending money back home to enable their frustrated colleagues in Nigeria to mount hate campaigns against the elite who had failed to plan for the nation.
The lawmaker therefore urged the government to take necessary steps to address the time bomb by funding education and provide jobs with realistic empowerment programmes that could meaningfully engage the idle youths.
He said, “To compound the problems, the elite had caused great economic havoc to the polity by engaging in medical tourism, educational tourism and religious tourism.
“Highly rated teaching hospitals in the country where people from all over the world used to come for treatment had been deserted due to poor funding while our people are taking away the scarce foreign exchange in search of treatment. Medical tourism had killed our health sector.
“The youths are seeing the flagrant display of affluence by the elite and their children and they have now given our leaders and the elite in general a red card.
“They had earlier issued a yellow card during the end-SARS agitation but the Nigerian leaders ignored them.
“Their agitations had yet to be revisited and addressed. Instead things are getting worse.
“Regrettably, the leaders that are part of the woes bedeviling the youths are now coming out to contest elections into various offices. These are leaders that should have been shot dead in a saner clime.”
He condemned the state pardon granted corrupt political office holders after tax payers money had been spent to prosecute their cases to logical conclusion at the Supremes Court.
He said, “Leaders like former governors Joshua Dariye and Jolly Nyame who were convicted for financial crimes against their states are now being granted state pardon and the society are celebrating them.
“How would the frustrated youths be happy with the government, which had no effective sanction against corruption?
” I hereby challenge the youths to issue a three-month ultimatum to the Federal Government of Nigeria to get things right or face the consequences.
“it is unfortunate that the level of misappropriation and fraud is much and this could lead to a total collapse of the country.
” I am not encouraging the youths to take laws into their hands but embrace a civil means like dialogue and electoral process to change the system. The God of justice had landed in Nigeria to avenge the wicked.”