How Buhari’s govt should address Nigeria’s unemployment problem

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on Sunday provided four suggestions to the current unemployment conundrum in Nigeria.

Atiku, who was reacting to the Bloomberg report on Nigeria’s unemployment situation, urged the citizens to assist President Muhammadu Buhari in a bid to save the country.

Bloomberg said in the report that Nigeria is set to emerge as the country with the highest unemployment rate in the world.

The ex-vice president said Nigeria got to its present state because some economic policies initiated by ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration were dumped by successive governments in the country.

Atiku urged the Federal Government to pay every family in Nigeria earning less than $800 per annum a monthly stipend of N5,000 through the Bank Verification Number (BVN) and National Identification Number (NIN).

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He also advised the government to get the 13.5 million out of school Nigerian children into school.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in the 2019 election also suggested the integration of the youths into a massive public works programme in the country.

Atiku said: “I have never felt so bad at being proven right, as I am by the report from Bloomberg Business on Saturday, March 27, 2021 that Nigeria is to emerge as the nation with the highest unemployment rate on Earth, at just over 33 percent.

“We warned about this, but repeated warnings by myself and other patriots were scorned. And now this.

“How did Nigeria get here? We got here by abandoning the people-centered leadership and free trade and deregulatory policies of the Obasanjo years (which saw us maintain an almost single-digit unemployment rate), and implementing discredited command and control policies that have led to massive capital flight from Nigeria.”