The Senator representing Osun East senatorial district at the National Assembly, Francis Fadahunsi, has said President Muhammadu Buhari has totally ignored the warning by the Nigerian youths which came as a result of the EndSARS protest.
He said many idle but educated youths are all over Nigeria engaging in criminal activities including banditry and kidnapping stating that if nothing is done on youth unemployment, the country is sitting on a time bomb.
The lawmaker said the idle youths who are engaged in crimes are now targeting the elite and the ruling class who they accused of mismanaging the nation’s economy and causing 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 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 the government improve the situation after the end-SARS protests in 2020, were now taking laws into their own hands.
He said the youth were protesting against elite flagrant displays 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 the government has 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 the 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 employment.
“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 appointments in the best health institutions and other federal establishments,” he said.
