By Olu Fasan
Nigeria is one of the few countries where the young far outnumber the old. The average age in Nigeria is about 18.6 years, and the youth, aged between 15 and 30, account for 70 per cent of Nigeria’s population. Unfortunately, at about 54 per cent, Nigeria has one of the highest youth-unemployment rates in the world with equally high rates of youth anxiety and depression.
That’s enough to frustrate young people anywhere in the world. Yet, whenever young Nigerians ventilate their grievances through public protests, the state is quick to clamp down brutally on them. Put simply, Nigeria kills its youth for daring to protest bad governance. There’s no better definition of barbarism.
When a country has a youth
population of 70 per cent, nearly 60 per cent of whom are jobless, it takes no
ingenuity to know that the country is sitting on a ticking time bomb. That’s
the extremely dire situation in Nigeria. According to the National Bureau of
Statistics, NBS, only eight per cent of the working-age population are employed
in the public sector, and only nine per cent in the private sector.
So, only 17 per cent of
Nigeria’s working-age population are “gainfully” employed, the rest are stuck
in poverty jobs in the informal sector. The NBS also said that around 60 per
cent of those employed in the public sector in 2023 got their jobs through
nepotism, bribery or both. Thus, for most Nigerian youth, ability and education
won’t get them a job; they must be well-connected and/or be willing to pay a
bribe, neither of which is within their reach. The dice are loaded against the
Nigerian youth; they face systemic and structural obstacles.
Earlier this week, on August 12, the world marked
the International Youth Day. Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s president, hailed “the
creative zeal of Nigerian youths” and said his administration “is here to make
their dreams come alive.” But he was mouthing mere platitude. The Nigerian
youth are not a priority group for his government. The reason is political:
they are not his natural electoral constituency.
In 2015, then President Buhari said: “Constituencies
that gave me 97 per cent cannot in all honesty be treated equally with
constituencies that gave me 5 per cent.” Well, over 90 per cent of the Nigerian
youth did not vote for Tinubu in 2023 and are unlikely to vote for him in 2027.
Thus, like Buhari, he will not treat constituencies that voted for him equally
with those that didn’t vote for him and may not in future.
Think about it. Tinubu gave N90
billion of public fund to subsidise Hajj for Muslims, an effective political
bribe to win their votes again in 2027. By contrast, he budgeted only N5.5
billion for student loans – no grants, all loans – for the youth! Of course,
most of those receiving the loans will be lumbered with unpayable debt because,
as everyone knows, a degree is not a ticket to a good job in Nigeria, with most
graduates doing menial work.
The problem is two-fold. First,
the Nigerian government cares only about the size of the education system, not
the quality of it. As a result, the prioritisation of quantity over quality has
led to a mismatch of graduate skills and those desired by private sector
employers. Second, due to the persistence of misguided and disjointed economic
policies, the Nigerian state has failed to generate the economic growth
necessary to engender job creation and job opportunities for the youth. Despite
his protestations to the contrary, Tinubu is paying lip service to quality
education and pursuing half-cooked policies that have little chance of
turbocharging economic growth and fostering job opportunities for the Nigerian
youth.
But if Tinubu’s lack of the
intellectual and practical graft of policy and delivery to tackle youth
unemployment and poverty is glaringly obvious, his lack of regard for the
safety of the youth screams even louder. In his vacuous speech a week after the
#EndBadGoverance protests started, Tinubu said: “As President of this country,
I must ensure public order.”
But must he not, as president,
also govern well to tackle youth unemployment and poverty? Sadly, instead of
addressing the legitimate concerns of the protesters, he threatened them.
Prominent members of his administration also disparaged the youth. Godswill
Akpabio, the Senate President, who has a penchant for putting his foot in his
mouth, mocked the protesters, saying: “Go ahead and protest, but we’ll be
eating.” Nyesom Wike, the self-important FCT Minister, threatened the
protesters in Abuja, and, in fact, unleashed police brutality on them.
That’s the typical behaviour of arrogant, out-of-touch “leaders”. In Lagos, Tinubu had a relationship with the people that was akin to that between master and servants, slave-owner and slaves, feudal lord and serfs. But as president, it’s been a culture shock. He can’t turn power to authority, he can’t command the blind loyalty and automatic obedience of Nigerians, especially as he was rejected by a whopping 63 per cent of the electorate.
Elsewhere, a leader with such a shallow mandate and
legitimacy will govern with humility, consult widely and create credible
channels for grievance ventilation and resolution. But Tinubu is ruling like an
autocrat, hiding behind “I must ensure public order” to repress legitimate
protests.
Professor Wole Soyinka, who had
been reticent in criticising Tinubu’s government, couldn’t help but condemn
“police brutality against the protesters”, with the use of “live bullets as a
state response to civic protests.” According to media reports, including on the
BBC, about 20 people were killed during the protests. Tinubu followed in the
footsteps of his immediate predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, who brutally
repressed the #RovolutionNow and #EndSARS protests, the latter resulting in 56
deaths, according to Amnesty International.
Yet, public protests are an
indispensable element of democracy. As the British human rights group “Article
19” puts it, “protests constitute a fundamental pillar of democracy and
complement the holding of free and fair elections.” Furthermore, according to
the Oxford University don Professor Paul Collier, “democracy constrains the
technical possibilities of government repression.” Sadly, not in Nigeria, which
is steeped in state brutality.
Given the appalling human
suffering, protests should be rife in Nigeria, according to the theory of
protests. But Nigerians are not what the New York Times columnist Thomas
Friedman called “the square people”, that is, people who demonstrate in public
squares “aspiring to a higher standard of living and liberty.” That’s partly
because of government repression. Yet, protests are a global phenomenon, and
civilised nations handle them with moderation. By repeatedly killing its
protesting youth, Nigeria loses any claim to civilisation.
*Dr.
Fasan is a commentator on public issues
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