Former President Olusegun Obasanjo Obasanjo has identified growing unemployment as one of the major issues threatening the peace of Nigeria.
“Unemployment is a major problem in the country today and if we don’t take care, it will consume all of us. In fact, the rising unemployment is a time bomb.”
The former president, who spoke on Saturday in an Independence Day message at a lecture organized by the Youth Fellowship of Owu Baptist Church, Abeokuta, emphasized that the high rate of unemployment is responsible for youth restiveness in the country. He warned that the situation should be tackled with all the “seriousness” it deserves before it gets out of hand.
According to the former president, he got five job offers immediately he completed his secondary school education at Baptist Boys High School, Abeokuta. Such offers came from the United Africa Company (UAC) and Moore Plantation, Ibadan, among others, saying that the situation is different today in the country.
Obasanjo said that it had gotten so bad that six Ph.D. holders were among applicants seeking jobs with Dangote’s company as truck drivers.
Obasanjo said that he foresaw and warned against the way and manner the nation resources were being spent recklessly by the government of Goodluck Jonathan which has now landed the country in recession, adding that at the time he was sounding the warning he was concerned about recession.
“Whoever that has lived to witness the celebration of today should thank God. Things are not what they should be, but we should pray that next year will be better than this year.”
“We thank God for those who are alive, we prayed for the souls of those who have laboured for these country and who have passed on to rest in perfect peace.”
The former president said the country cannot develop if it pays no attention to agriculture.
“That is why we have to take it as a key of our development else the many educated Nigerians who have no job are like time bomb, sooner than later, it will explode,” he said. [myad]
