A plan for a national youth conference is a surprising policy statement contained in President Bola Tinubu’s independence day speech. While many Nigerians were taken aback, the proposed conference according to Tinubu, will offer a platform to address the diverse challenges and opportunities confronting young people who constitute more than 60 per cent of the country’s population.
He had enthused inter alia:” It will provide meaningful dialogue and empower 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.
By its sheer novelty and modus operandi, the proposal seems good as it will facilitate the convergence of youths from the 36 states for a month-long talk shop at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja. The other aspect which relates to the president’s optimism that the conference potential will unite young people nationwide to collaboratively develop solutions to issues such as education, employment, innovation, security and social justice, seems beneficial from a cursory perspective.
Placed on a comparison scale, however, the reasons adduced by the president are not convincing enough to get the buy-in of the people. Nigeria does not need to gather its youths at a particular venue before issues affecting their aspirations can be articulated and appropriate solutions proffered. Unless otherwise disproven, the idea is not well-thought-out; it’s largely a knee-jerk policy, ostensibly conceived to beguile the prospective attendees as well as other categories of the populace.
It’s diversionary to sway and dissuade the youths from walking the path of civil protest as evidenced by their participation in the 10-day EndBadGovernance protests in August which yielded tragic results on account of loss of lives and destruction of property across the country. Ironically, those casualties emanated from the poor handling and high-handedness of security agencies deployed by the Tinubu administration to quell the protests.
It’s somewhat deceitful for a president who brutally quelled civil protests and thereafter slammed those arrested with phantom treasonable charges to offer a conference in which some of the maltreated youths may be participants. Some of the protesters that are still undergoing trials were bailed after meeting the stringent conditionality, including payment of N10 million each by their sureties.
It’s even incredulous that an administration which refused to meet one of the many demands by the protesters is now talking about providing an avenue for the same people to talk about their problems. Two pertinent questions arise at this juncture: What had changed between then and now? Is there anything new to discuss at the conference which could not have been sorted out last August rather than defer same, ostensibly to score a cheap political point?
If the president had consulted the youths or wider segments of the population on his proposal, the majority would have opposed it for two reasons. Firstly, organizing such a conference would entail sheer wastage of scarce resources in the light of our comatose economy. Secondly, Nigeria had held conferences on sundry issues in the past, but most of the resolutions were left to gather dust on the shelves instead of being implemented.
Nigerian youths do not need a conference to attend to their impediments. Hindrances such as unemployment, increased cost of university education, and uncertainty of tomorrow can be addressed without a formal conference. Nigeria should borrow a leaf from other African countries had been attending to issues regarding their youths such as job creation and promoting the well-being of the citizenry without making conferences as a ritual as we do here.
Our considered opinion is that the conference should be shelved while resources budgeted for it be channelled to an area that would benefit the youths. Rather than gather thousands of youths most of whom will likely be drawn from the youth wing of the All Progressives Congress(APC), the federal government should set aside huge funds to empower jobless youths who are ready to go into self-employment.
Besides, the government should consider the conversion of students’ loan scheme to a grant. This is feasible if the country’s resources are honestly managed. It’s also desirable to introduce social welfare scheme such as payment of monthly stipends to unemployed graduates to ameliorate the economic hardship brought upon their lives by the Tinubu administration’s biting economic policies.
