Youth Unemployment, Major Cause of Insecurity in North-East – Peter Obi

By Sunny A Ijomah

The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, says the vast number of unemployed youths in the North-East Region is the biggest contributing factor to insecurity in the region, as thousands of youths wake up every morning without food or shelter.

He stated this last Monday when he met with some North-East stakeholders in Abuja.

According to Obi, with the enormous amount of arable land in the North-East, the region had the potential not only to feed the country but also produce enough cash crops for export. He pledged that his administration would bring that to reality if he won the presidential elections next year.

He said insecurity would be a thing of the past when idle youths became engaged in legal activities, ranging from agriculture to commerce which would ensure the country moved from consumption to production.

Obi said, ‘Youth unemployment is nearing 50 per cent, so you have millions of youths in their productive ages doing nothing, not knowing where the next meal will come from. With that situation, you are going to have crises; crisis of insecurity, crisis of banditry, crisis of kidnapping.

‘What I and Datti (Baba-Ahmed) are promising you is number one; that we have the best combination, the best experience to start tackling the issue of security and I will say this, hold us responsible. Let nobody tell you we cannot solve the issue of insecurity in Nigeria, it can be stopped and done very quickly.

‘We want to unite Nigeria, we want to see Nigerians being proud of their country again. We want to remove Nigeria from where it is today; from consumption to production and when you do that, you start pulling people out of poverty.’