Abike Dabiri-Erewa
A
new revelation has emerged insinuating that many Nigerian youths now
flee the country to European countries using routes cutting through the
sea.
Abike Dabiri-Erewa, the Senior Special Assistant to the President
on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora matters, yesterday said Nigerian youths
now migrate to European countries via sea, to seek greener pastures.
This is even as she rallied youths support for President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption crusade.
According to The Nation, she spoke at the maiden edition of African
Union Economic, Social and Cultural Council Nigeria (ECOSOCC) held at
the ECOWAS Parliament in Abuja.
She decried a situation where youths who are well educated and
could add value to their country would risk their lives on the sea and
desert to cross to another country.
According to her, a large amount of deaths have been recorded as a
result of this, hence, the need for youths to rise to their
responsibilities as leaders of tomorrow.
Her words: “Nothing is stopping you but yourself. You have
young educated graduates drowning at sea trying to cross over from
Africa to Europe.
“I have come across graduate, these are not poor people, these
are people who have gone to schools and then you decide that you can
only get life by seeking hope in hopelessness by going through the
desert, Niger, Chad, half of them die before they get to Libya anyway,
some get to Libya many times and even get killed as black immigrants all
because you want to get to Europe and then you find that one is a
challenge and failure of leadership in Africa.
“I was coming from Addis Ababa and I said I want a situation
where Europe will be migrating to Africa not Africa migrating to Europe
but it calls into question of leadership, we just have to get it right
all over Africa and that challenge goes back to the Nigerian youths.
“We brought back a guy from Lybia, he was locked up and was about to be killed by Gaddafi, we brought him back with 24 others,” Dabiri-Erewa said.
While also canvassing support for the President Buhari’s
anti-corruption fight, she said the President’s integrity is such that
cannot be questioned.
“This is the time to ensure we save ourselves, I will say that
we have a President whose integrity cannot be questioned, who is
fighting corruption, you need to support him.
“We have to support President Buhari’s fight against
corruption, corruption will destroy our future. In fact, it has
destroyed a lot of things, let’s save our country now.
“There is no compassion in governance anymore if there is
compassion you will know that pension money is not meant to be stolen
anymore, but why are people stealing anyhow because there are no
sanctions, there is so much corruption, not because Nigerians are poor,
not because Nigerians are greedy but because there are no sanctions.
“Now, we have a President that says there must be sanctions, it
is going to take a while because the justice system is slow but we have
to support him to ensure that those who stole your money go to jail,” she said.
Earlier, former Lagos Youth Commissioner, Michael Bamidele, stressed the importance of youths to the development of a nation.
He state that any government that attempts to ignore the youth or
fails to harness their potentials and talents to impact positively on
the priorities of that governance is actually doing so at a very grave
cost.
“In Nigeria, not fewer that 60 million Nigerian youths are
presently unemployed, roaming about the streets and battling with
starvation, social neglect, elite exploitation, extreme penury,
stagnation and squalor of the highest order,” he said.
He explained that these prevailing circumstances have none-the-less
crippled the potentials of Nigerian youths for maximum expression,
truncating their dreams and vision for a greater future.
To this end, he urged government at all levels to own up to the
responsibility of defending the rights of the youths and also children.
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