Apparently miffed by the current socio-economic deprivations of the Nigerian youth and foreseeable negative implications for their self-fulfilment in life, foremost technocrat and Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Prof. Kingsley Moghalu, has unveiled a 7-point agenda for implementation if elected Nigerian President come 2023 that would empower the youth for leadership roles and give them a sense of belonging in the Nigerian project.
Moghalu, who dwelt extensively with the fundamental challenges of the youths and how these partly triggered the EndSARS protests in which some lives and property were lost last year, lamented that rather than using the nation’s abundant resources to develop the youths, past and present governments had continually worsen their conditions and most recently, by accentuating the nation’s debt and unemployment crises.
Specifically, the ADC Presidential hopeful and former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in a statement to commemorate the one year anniversary of the EndSARS protests and solidarity with the youth demand for equity and justice in Nigeria, listed his transformational agenda for the youths as including the creation of a Start-ups Funding Scheme; and Transitional Unemployment Support;.
Others are, Inclusive Governance and Leadership Mentoring; Establishment of Intergenerational Council; Increased Education Budget and Police Reform.
While lamenting the rising public debt stock which currently has risen to over N35 trillion and the worsening youth unemployment rate at above 40 percent with great destructive impact on the country, especially in the Northern region where millions of the youth are out of school and many have become potential agents of terrorism, Moghalu maintained that if elected President of Nigeria, the current deprivations of the Nigerian youths would be frontally tackled and many of them included in public governance.
On the start-ups funding scheme, he said: “My administration will establish a venture capital fund of an initial N1 trillion capitalisation, in partnership with the private sector, which will manage the fund.
“The Fund will provide equity investment for start-ups and businesses owned by young Nigerian men and women, invest in massive skills training for them, and fund the process of taking the products of innovation into the marketplace through mass production of such products.
“This, with competent management of the economy, will create over 20 million direct and indirect, sustainable private sector jobs over a decade, stem emigration, and inspire Diaspora return to the country”, he added.
This is even as he promised that under the transitional unemployment support programme, his administration will provide transitional youth support for six months to one year for job seekers on the condition they undergo skills training if required, as a condition for accessing the temporary support package.
According to him, the inclusive governance plan will encourage youth representation in his government of 50 percent and that the government will implement this in a manner that achieves the policy of our party, African Democratic Congress (ADC), to have a minimum of 35% of the cabinet as youth and women respectively.
Moghalu also proposed that his government would constitute a cabinet that is 50% youth and 50% women at the same time by combining both gender and age demographics in order to achieve his vision for both gender and youth equity in the appointment of competent citizens into senior federal offices.
Similarly, he spoke on the Leadership mentoring agenda in which he plans to offer leadership mentoring to the youth as part of the processes for transitioning to a competent, youth-led government in Nigeria.
On the proposed Intergenerational Equity Council, he expatiated: “My administration will establish an Intergenerational Equity Council as a policy advisory body that will be tasked with embedding the youth in the economy and governance of the country.
“The council will work to bring into reality the promises of the National Youth Policy. As part of its responsibilities, the council will memorialise the 2020 EndSARS protest and restore civic engagement and the right to protest as provided for in the Nigerian constitution”, the ADC Presidential candidate added.
He further clarified the plan to increase education budget, stressing that “from the current 5 percent threshold, I plan to increase budgetary allocation for education to 20 percent.
“The increased funding will provide better remuneration for school-teachers, reform the curriculum to foster quality science and technology education, fund research and provide infrastructure and teaching/learning equipment.
“We will ensure ASUU strikes become a thing of the past. Our root and branch reform of Nigeria’s education system will equip the youth with the skills and spirit of patriotism to colonize the future”, Moghalu vowed
He also explained that under the Police reform agenda his “administration will undertake a comprehensive and constitutional police reform that will properly establish state police, train the police to respect and protect human rights, ensure internal accountability against excessive use of force and extra-judicial killing, institute specialisation within the police force which is absent today, increase the number strength of the officers, and provide significant improvement in the remuneration and welfare package of the service men and women.”
The Law and International Relations expert, who is currently an Oxford Martin Visiting Fellow, University of Oxford, described the continued detention of youth who participated in the peaceful #EndSARS protest one year after as a violation of the country’s constitutional democracy and called on the authorities to release the youth activists without further delay.
According to him, a systemic resolution of EndSARS will be achieved only through the election of a competent leader that sincerely has the interests of the youth at heart, pointing out that “like the youth of Zambia successfully did with their “take it to the polls” campaign, Nigerian youth should get their PVCs and deliver 50 million votes in 2023 for a different kind of leadership in Nigeria than one that is oppressive towards them and lacks any vision for how the youth can take charge now, of a future that rightfully belongs to them.”
