The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has differed with President Muhammadu Buhari that Nigerian youths are lazy and want everything free.
NANS President, Aruna Kadiri, told New Telegraph that the youth are not lazy, but failed by their leaders.
Kadiri said: “It is unfortunate that the President of Nigeria could describe the youth as lazy in spite of our perseverance, doggedness and commitment.
“The President may have forgotten that the challenges facing the youth are the creations of Nigerian leaders whose objective is to keep the country’s youth in perpetual servitude. Provide the youth with enabling environment, and they would perform wonders. This is evidenced by the success stories of many young Nigerians who have escaped the many inanities of this country and were provided with good atmosphere outside the country.”
Also, President of Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF), Alhaji Yerima Shettima, stated that the government has failed the youth with the growing unemployment rate.
His words: “President Buhari is a beneficiary of youth effort to be where he is today. So the question of saying they are lazy does not even arise. During the 2015 elections, Nigerian youths, against all odds, came out and sacrificed their lives to make sure he became president.
They did everything to make him president at the expense of their lives. And at the end of the day, they have nothing to show for this government. No problem; if they are lazy, we will know in 2019. In 2019, we will find alternative to our problems.
“It is an abuse on the sensibility of Nigerian youths for anybody to call them lazy. Nigerian youths are the same people who today are not beneficiaries of free education that some of them acquired. During their days some of them joined Nigerian Army from schools. And before they finished school, they had opportunity of jobs. During their days, government paid them allowances for them to go to school and they provided security, food and everything for them.
“But today, Nigerian youths are the same people who have to work, suffer, sacrifice and go through hell, and after sacrificing to pay their school fees at the end of the day, they graduate without a job. So, who is lazy between our generation and their generation?
“We are prepared and we thank APC government for their efforts. We will meet in 2019 and we will know who is lazy when the time comes.”
On his part, Dotun Hassan, the President of Yoruba Council of Youths Worldwide (YCYW), told New Telegraph that the government has neglected the youth.
According to him, “Nigerian youths are the most neglected, vulnerable and abandoned sector of the state, not just the economy. If the President is saying that Nigerian youths are lazy; that shows an admittance of total neglect for welfare and progress of the Nigerian youths.
“We have vibrant, intellectually-sound and well committed youths of this nation, but they have been impoverished by virtue of the policy and the kind of system they found themselves. There is no environment to equip us and challenge us to deliver what is expected of an average Nigerian youths. We have the capacity to deliver if we have the enabling environment.
