President Muhammadu Buhari has said many Nigerian youths are uneducated, not ready to work and dependent on revenue from oil to survive.
He said the youths, who make up 60 per cent of the population, were waiting to get social amenities free without doing anything.
The President spoke on Wednesday during a panel discussion at the Commonwealth Business Forum in Westminster, London.
The moderator had asked Buhari to give his final thoughts on the issues discussed.
The President said he had fulfilled his campaign promises by improving on the nation’s security and the economy.
Buhari, while giving his administration a pass mark in security, said the government had been able to decimate the Boko Haram sect, whose activities, he said, had damaged the education and health infrastructures.
He said, “And then the economy. We have a very young population and our population is estimated conservatively to be 180 million. The 60 per cent of the population is below the age of 30. A lot of them have not been to school and they are claiming that Nigeria has been an oil producing country and therefore they should sit and do nothing and get housing, healthcare and education free,”.
The President added that his administration had also made impact in agriculture by giving loans to citizens without asking for collateral.
He added, “Recently, my minister for information was constrained to answer a question by people accusing my administration of doing nothing. He said let Nigerians be reminded the position we were before May 2015 and the condition we are now and what we have achieved between then and now and I think people were impressed with the answer.
“In economy, we are doing very well, especially in agriculture. We are providing soft loans and the guarantee is just that you have to belong to a certain locality and you have land. You don’t need to go to a bank to bring physical collateral. I think a lot is being done,”.
Buhari said a sign that security had improved was the plan by Shell to invest $15bn in Nigeria.
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