 Vice President Yemio Shibajo urges Nigerian youths to quit complaining about the country's challenges and instead build the future they desire. And, platu stagehouse of assembly criticizes or crises worsen as the embattled speaker Abok Ayuba and 10 others are arrested. This is Plus Politics, I am Mary Anifor. Vice President Yemio Shibajo has charged Nigerian youths to stop complaining about the country's challenges. He insisted that we move past the issues and build a future that the youths desire by focusing on what is right. He encouraged them not to inherit the biases and prejudices of their parents, seizing their opportunities to contribute their own quota to Nigeria. The Vice President said building a nation is an intergenerational endeavour that requires the impute of all, hence the need for youths to be innovative. On the agitation for leadership, Shibajo said Nigerian youths should explore the right channels in communicating their grievances rather than resort to destruction and violence. What's running us to discuss this is Uche Chuta. He is a political analyst and of course we have Kunlilawal, he is the Executive Director of Electoral College, Nigeria. Thank you very much gentlemen for joining us. Thank you Mimi for having us on your show. Great. Thank you, it's my pleasure to be here. Great, I'm going to start with you Uche. I'm going to still categorize you as a Nigerian youth. I mean, thank goodness, the People's Democratic Party after their convention had a 25-year-old emerge as a youth leader for once as opposed to what used to be before. So I can actually categorize you as a Nigerian young person. But looking at the Vice President's statements, I want to start with the opening statements. He's charged Nigerian youths to look past the challenges that Nigeria is currently facing and build a future they desire by focusing on what is right. Let's look at the realities that we're facing in Nigeria and, you know, the challenges of Nigeria. I'm curious, how do you separate that and look to the future if you cannot address today's problems? Yeah, exactly. So it's, because of me, I don't understand how you look past the problems and move forward. If you do a random sampling of 10 youths, young people on the street and ask them, if you have a chance to leave the country, will you leave? At least 70% of them, as 7 out of 10, will say they want to leave. So that means that the environment doesn't allow them to express themselves for them to become who they are supposed to be. It doesn't allow your potential energy to turn into kinetic energy. And government should show its seriousness. In the small things, how those governments show their interest to the young people, education, make sure the education is top notch, you're educating the youth populace with skills that they can use in the 21st century. They're not doing that. Encourage businesses, young businesses, entrepreneurs. There are young people who have studied, innovated and done different things in the world of fintech. How does government encourage them, taxes, closing them down, shutting their bank accounts? So, I don't understand. There's a disconnect between what government is saying and the reality on ground. I mean, many times when the VP talks, it's almost as if he's not part of the government. He speaks like someone who is dissociated from the present government. But if he's part of this government, he should understand that there's a disconnect in his words and the policy direction of his government, of which he's a vice president. You are of the electoral college and you do not just talk about elections. You're trying to also, one way or the other, reposition the minds of young people and, you know, looking at the good in Nigeria, trying to forge towards a better Nigeria. So, I'm going to go back to the same statement. The vice president said that we need to focus on what is right. Now, there are a few positives in the country. I mean, if we can point to them, there should be some things that are happening that are good in this country. Can we at least focus on what is right and not necessarily the challenges in the words of the vice president? Can we look past those challenges and focus on what is right? And in this regard, what would you think the vice president is terming right? Is it the right things that are happening in the country, the good things, the positives? Is that it? So, for me, the positives in this country are too little to spur anyone off in the right direction. I also kind of agree with the vice president, yes, the youth of this country must be a little bit strategic. But as much as we must be strategic, I think what we must recognize, which of course the vice president has not put into cognizance, is that there must be a foundation for that rise to the core. Anything that has happened in Nigeria, which was developmental, which also could help improve youth participation, or a youth target towards government or business or the economy, has actually been accidental. It has never been intentional. So, as much as the government should be. How do you mean accidental? I'd like for us to dwell there. What do you mean by it's been accidental? You're saying that there's not been any deliberate effort in changing the lives of the average Nigerian person, including the young person. You're saying that every good thing that's happened to us was not totally planned out? So, I'll give an example. With the progress seen in FinTech industries, the coming of a few FinTech companies available, they didn't exist because the foundation for them was built by the CBN, or policies were built to support or to create such things. These things came out of innovation and first and direction of course, which was shown by the youth of Nigeria. So, I will call them accidental because they created quite, I wouldn't say a chaotic situation in finance which resulted in a need for the services, but I would say a rather unstable position for the youth to try in the financial technology world by the actions taken by the CBN or the misdirection taken by CBN impacts in the financial technological industry. So, that's what I mean by that. So, if we had a room full of young people and this was the statement or message that the vice president was sending to these young persons, how do we even break this down for them to even take the message? We're not even talking about the messenger or shooting the messenger here, we're talking about taking the message. How do we look past the challenges? He's also talked about the fact that we need to direct our grievances through the proper channels. We're in a democracy, so I'm going to ask you what are these proper channels that these young people, because I'm sure that if we had a room full of them, they'd ask you, so how do we go about it? How do we even go about fudging ahead with all of the challenges that seem insurmountable to us? Okay, I would say that the new bill passed by the National Assembly, which allows for the direct primaries, instead of the indirect abolishing the delegate system, is a key way for the youth, of course, to key in to participatory politics. But this can only occur if it occurs to the youth to join political parties. As long as they abstain from political parties, this will not change the status quo. Now, as regards maybe innovation generally in Africa, we would say the public service in Nigeria has been a little behind there, which has allowed for loopholes, which the youth can cash in on with ingenuity. But we must always continue to recognize that as much as strategic as this has been, the youth to need to get on their own target and say, okay, Rome was not built in a day. What do we want to achieve in the next five years? What do you want to achieve in the next 10 years? I'll say, of course, we cannot rely on government for everything, because the foundation, of course, has been a little unstable. But of course, if we're not thinking of ourselves, we might be able to create a future that we, of course, can't ride on. I think the vice president is right in a way you get, but the countries that have achieved this movement, that is moving from their youth have achieved this movement. There are basics that have to be in place. For example, the rule of law, which hasn't been truly adhered to in the country, there has to be a careful intentional move by the government to ensure that youths prosper with SMEs, or even a participatory need by political parties, you know, for people to get into participatory politics. And I'll give this example. Yes, we must commend the PDP, a 25-year-old being in a nationally youth leader position. But I'll ask the question, who is supposed to be in the position? A 95-year-old, it would be a little impressive if we saw a national publicist secretary of the PDP or the APC. I'd like to come in there. I know I've followed politics in Nigeria for a long time. We've had 50-year-olds occupy that office. We've had 60-year-olds emerge as party youth leaders. I mean, you and I have been in this country. So it is worthy of note, whether you do or not. But it's not something we should celebrate. Of course, I do understand that. This is a departure from the North. Yes, yes, worthy of note, but not celebratory, like we've won a grand prix. It's not yet at that point yet. So we'd like to see maybe a chairman of that kind of political party being under 40. Or we'd like to see maybe the minister of information, or the minister of, you know, or the head of NCC, be someone who's actually young and in tune with, you know, IT and innovation generally. That's what I'm talking about. Okay, great. I'm going back to Uche. Uche, as much as Kune has said the most important things, which is the things that government need to do on the path of government. As young people, have we also positioned ourselves to be able to take on these responsibilities or these opportunities if they were to present themselves? I already know that there are so many negatives in this country that we need positives to somewhat, you know, override them. But what opportunities have been created for the average Nigerian to thrive? Yeah. This is the question that I'm asking. Has government done its job? Because it's not enough, I'm thinking. If government says this, this and that, you need to do this and that. What are the things that have been put in place to make me be able to do those things? Yeah. So let's go to the basics. The basics, young people are not asking for much. They're only asking for a means to end a living. So there are two things. You end a living by one. You have a job. You go to a job and an employer pays you at the end of the month, end of the week, however, or end of the day, however you end with wages. Or you start up a business. You have enough profits that you can save, eat, take care of your basics, provide food, shelter, basics. This is lacking. That's all you want, you know. So for example, if you take a hungry young person and put into politics, he's definitely going to behave like a hungry person. Meaning his vote can be bought. His support can be bought. I mean, his morals can be bought. He has no integrity, basically. He has no economic power. So for example, it might be more difficult for you to convince for me to use my integrity because of money or maybe even kundi or everything if I'm in politics because the politician is not feeding me. I do not depend on any stipend which the politician or the political system can provide for me to make my decisions. But we need an empowered youth. So the government should think about jobs. It's as simple. We need economic empowerment. Even before political empowerment, it has to be economic empowerment. What skills as the government is the government pushing so youths are more empowered to increase the amount of wages? Even a global economy whereby you don't have to live in the U.S. to work for an American company. What skills do American companies need? How is the government saying, you know what? Let's take advantage of these young people and create opportunities for them to serve other countries. We speak English. English is the number one business language in the world. India identified that and they said, you know what? We have masses and millions of young people. Let's take advantage. Let's train our youth to power call centers all around the world. Let's train our youth to provide technical support all around the world. All they need to do is put infrastructure there. They have to also make sure that they have the Internet and all those different things to allow them to do that. What is the government doing to empower the Nigerian youth? Economically. That's all. We don't even think about the politics. Economics. How are they creating jobs? How are they creating opportunities for their companies to succeed? Instead, they're stifling economic growth. They're closing down companies. They're bringing taxes on the companies. This is not... This is no sign of... If they control the economy, they control your politics. So when we talk about politics, we're even missing the point. The VP knows what to do. Jobs have to be created. We don't want stipends. We don't want to trade our money with a share money during elections. You know, what we want is economic empowerment, opportunities, great environment. Think. Think, strategize on our behalf. What is our ICT national policy? How does it fall in line with us taking advantage of the global economy? Yeah. But let me... If I could comment there just for a minute. Can we only leave this? Because, you know, it's very easy when we say... It's very easy to blame everything on Bahari. And I'm not in any way also speaking for President Bahari. I'm just saying... Anything goes bad. Bahari is the problem. But should we only be leaving this at the doorstep of our presidency? What about the state governors, the local government chairman, the councillors, the people who are saddled with the responsibility of taking government to those who need government the most? Because I think that sometimes we forget about those people that are really directly responsible to us and we leave everything at the foot of the federal government. All of them are responsible. So when I say government, I don't necessarily mean only Bahari. All of them are responsible. The state governors, the House of Reps, the senators, the local government chairman, they're all responsible in their only two ways or the other. Because they can do things at the very local level. If the local government chairman says, you know what, the youths in my local government, I want to empower them. I want to build some centre where they can come there. There's internet. There's access to network. They can do that at a micro level. They're not doing this. They're only interested in their pockets. So when I say government, at this point of time, we have to go beyond blaming Bahari. As much as, yes, the head is rotten and so everything else should be rotten. But still, everybody has a responsibility. Everybody can do something. But it's people in government that have to push this. Also, leaders of the big companies, you know, in the corporate Nigeria too, they need to be interested in taking the next step forward. The doyens of the industry. How is Dangote, for example, empowering the young people for the next generation? It's not just by selling cement to companies who sell cement. What exactly is he doing? So these are the kind of questions we have to ask. And this is what needs to be done. Let me push you farther on the... I know that you're not an education expert, but you're a doctor. You've got a doctorate. Let's look at the education in Nigeria and how it affects our young persons. Because you see, I went to Federal University, a public school, all the way through from my secondary to university. I went to a public school. How has our education sector helped to mold the average young person for the reality that awaits them after graduation? We're all about paper education, which I don't have a problem with. But then in Sena Climes, you see people do holiday jobs. They volunteer. The spirit of volunteerism is nowhere to be found in Nigeria. It's one of the things that I openly advocate for. But you see a young person who wants to run an internship and he's asking you or she's asking you how much you're going to pay them. So the experience is not as prioritized as the money they think they're going to make from the experience. So what role has this played in molding us? Because we're turning up more and more students at the end of every academic year. Where do these people go? I know we've talked about opportunities, but has that also played a role in how much, you know, how bad the situation of things are? Yes. Okay. That's correct. My PhD actually is an affidavit PhD. So it was a joke. Oh, it's not. Okay. But it's okay. Education, for example, here, from when they primary school, the students, for example, on Friday are supposed to volunteer and do things and help some old people's homes or serve here or there or work for the city. It's not in our culture. It's not in our educational system. It's not in green for them to see, to work about service, about internship. This is not in green. And that's the full rule of government. If they institute that as part of educational policy at all levels, where children, students at all levels, understand about community service, understand about internship, understand about, it's not necessarily you work for money. Then our ideas will change. Experiences will add up. We'll gather the skills necessary so we are employable. Because the reality of the fact is that the Nigerian youth is unemployable, generally speaking. But the reason I won't blame the Nigerian youth for being unemployable, I will blame the system that educated so that they have made this person pass to the 6334 system or whatever they've changed the system to and is now unemployable. Why wasn't it ingrained into the system? But we have the NYSE. We put all of us into NYSE. We know what happens there. You have three weeks in camp. Do you think that first three weeks in camp? They have all these different kind of seminars. Come and learn this. Come and learn this. How do you learn that in three weeks? Everybody just excited to be in camp and hey, what's happening, you know. Then after the three weeks, there's something called posting. You get posted to somewhere and they reject you. So we don't need a teacher. I mean, we know what the NYSE is. On paper, maybe yes. But in reality, the NYSE system is not working. It's not enough. This should have happened from when we're in primary school, and come back to high school. What can people expect? That it will be absolutely unambocal curriculums for office and I could count the number of teenagers who were lodging in that hotel and I was wondering what they were doing there but of course a few weeks later we saw you know the police rounding up a lot of young people and saying you know that he was a yahoo den but then we're also looking at the issue of prioritizing money you know riches we're glorifying it so I'm gonna ask is society playing a role in how our young people have turned out and how it's going as we speak the fact that we're having more and more people engaged in advanced free fraud more and more people engaged in money laundering just looking for the quick quick money skins to get to the top is that also government's problem or is that a societal problem can they can you hear me yes I can hear you so how society has played a role of course we must say that if our society which of course our culture which is basically culture as defined as the way of life celebrates riches with outness really come on you there come on you there okay okay so if you have a culture I think that we're having connection issues with you so I'm gonna toss that question back to Uche Uche can you help us out with that question yeah it's a it's sad it's a function of the car culture and this I'm not gonna be in government too much in this we lost our values we which is a way of life so it's on a system can you just hold on because we're having connection issues with you let's just allow Uche and then let's see if we can get you back on yeah we've lost our values so I can blame government on this our values where we we we glorify wealth we don't have asking the source of the wealth in those days I'm hoping they fall there were those days if it if a child comes back home and shows some money and the parents don't know exactly how it gets in the money the parents who we chase the child after the house and say please don't I don't want your money you know but our parents are not questioning this wealth our traditional rulers are not questioning some of this world they give you some of these people on traditional titles without a question how did you make your money what is your business how do you do it you know I mean they don't even try and cover up their tracks and say okay let's even do some kind of kind of money laundry and have a cover of our business they openly say I'm doing yahoo yahoo and they're proud of our teacher and they and sing about it and do everything so our values have eroded it's taking us steps back and it's because we glorify wealth and we say glorifying wealth from our politicians how can a politician we hail our politicians for stealing our money we give us so much respect as a disguise rich he's loaded we give it we refer them we almost worship them when they throw around money and they have all the security guards around them and mobile police where are these are people living off the commonwealth and we give them so much respect you talk if you should see young people talking about politicians how they be healing them they give me their names and refine them they've turned them into Greek gods when they talk about them and it's our fault these are common criminals who have occupied political office and we don't treat them like that we worship them so the young people say oh they're worshiping the politicians who are stealing our common world so I can as well do my own I see and these politicians are chasing these young people because they don't want competition they don't want these young people to start competing against them and have money and not come and challenge them because that's what some young people did some young people actually did yahoo four or nine frauds and entered into politics and entered into office in fact many of the people in politics right now when fraud in one way or the other and I'm sure there's one or two governors here I'm not going to mention any names who were in fraud and are now in political office that is the path so it's our system it's it's it's it's what it is Kunle let me see let's try and see if you're back with us can you hear me to Kunle? Yes I can hear you I'm back then. Okay I know you're gonna add to what you know Uche has said but I also want to ask another question as to where are the mentors that these young people can look up to who who can they look at look at in society as we speak I'm talking about today's Nigeria to say oh this is my mentor aside from the few rich guys who are the Oterolas or the Dangotes and in Lumelews of this world or this country who can they really look up to to say this is my mentor and this is who I'm going to fashion my life after whether they're coming from rich backgrounds or very humble backgrounds in addition. You know like I and Uche have stated earlier which are also about trust our entire system is based on currency so everything we talk about is currency related so you can't even be a mentor in Nigeria I cannot offering a cash back and I'm sure Uche who has been in politics and being around Nigeria will test to this and I cannot test if someone asks the Nigeria I hey I want to be your mentee trust me you're receiving the bill of let nothing less than $300k in a week or two and that's the system we have we believe mentorship is when I give you money and money comes back we don't look at intellectual understanding we do not weigh we pay a lot poor lot of poor emphasis and strategic planning or even using the resource available provided by a mentor so it's all a societal breakdown or a cultural breakdown on our ideas on what meritocracy is and what you know being successful is I'll tell you Nigerians do not understand successful without a huge back count you can be successful and trends that you push can change the course of history being politics being business being banking and you might never be financially buoyant like to translate and because they don't understand this few mentees subscribe to mentors or subscribe to men for their subscribe to mentors that can't provide financial backing and that is a serious issue can we change this can we change this yes we can how do you know we will need to build a new culture I've always been a proponent of saying we need to build a Nigeria it's right Nigeria we have so many ethnicities in Nigeria one tribe that has marginalized the most is in Nigeria hmm well Uche Chuta Kunlilawal thank you very much for speaking with us we appreciate it yeah thank you very much all right thank you very much thank you gentlemen and thank you for staying with us coming up on plus politics but to state House of Assembly crisis worsens as the besieged speaker Abok Ayuba is arrested we'll take a short break now and we'll return stay with us