Buhari Owes No Apology For Youth Comment – Ex-Minister

Buhari Owes No Apology Over Comment On Youths - Momoh
President Muhammadu Buhari (image courtesy Presidency)

Former Information Minister Tony Momoh has said President Muhammadu Buhari was merely expressing his opinion when he said that some Nigerian youths do not want to work.

Buhari had said during a Commonwealth function that many Nigerian youths were waiting for freebies instead of working.

This has attracted condemnation from several quarters but Momoh has said that Buhari owes no one an apology since the statement is true to some extent.

“That the President should apologise. Apologise for what? Are many Nigerian youths not staying at home doing nothing? Why should he apologise for saying the truth?” Daily Independent reported him as asking.

“Is it not true that many of our youths are sitting at home doing nothing because of lack of opportunities?”

“If he is going to apologise, it will be because the government is trying to create opportunities for youths. To apologise for saying a lot of Nigerian youths are staying at home is unnecessary.

“The population of Nigerian youths that are jobless, is it high or low? If it is high, then one can rightly say that most of them don’t work. The fact is President Buhari is a very highly focused man. He says what is on his mind and is never afraid of doing so.”

He added that, “If you want to analyse the issue, you will discover that he is just speaking his mind unlike the professional politicians who are used to lying. Having discovered that many Nigerian youths stay at home and have no work to do, it is his responsibility to create avenue for them to work.

“If Shell is going to invest $15b or more in Nigeria, is it not a way of creating avenues for the youths who stay at home doing nothing? A lot of Nigerians are focusing on unimportant things, playing politics with important issues by distorting what the president said.

“If I were to look at the issue, I will focus on the fact that Shell is going to invest $15b in Nigeria and create avenues for unemployed youths to work. He never used the word lazy in describing Nigerian youths, it is mischief makers who twisted his words and claim he described youths as lazy but the fact is that youths.”

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