PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has told Nigerian youths to ensure that the country is secure if they desire to get jobs.
Buhari said this while responding to a question on how to make Nigeria more attractive and competitive for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) during an interview on Arise Television on Thursday.
He also said the #EndSARS protest in October 2020 was aimed at removing him from office.
The president explained that he had told all members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to inform governors and traditional rulers to tell the youths to ‘behave themselves’ if they wanted jobs.
“The Federal Government has no more vacancy (sic), it’s full. Go to any state governor and ask him to give you a contract or give you a job, he will tell you there’s no vacancy. The same thing with local governments. So you may have a good degree but you may die without getting a job because nobody is going to invest in an insecure environment.
“So I told them (governors) to tell the youths that if they want jobs, they should behave themselves, make sure Nigeria is secure so that people can come and invest,” Buhari said.
The president did not state what he wanted Nigerian youths to do to secure the country.
However, although the president claimed that the #EndSARS protest was organised to remove him from office, The ICIR observed that the demonstrations were staged across the country to protest against police brutality.
Five demands tabled by the protesting youths included: the immediate release of all arrested protesters; justice for all deceased victims of police brutality and appropriate compensations for their families as well as the setting up of an independent body to oversee the investigation and prosecution of all reported cases of police misconduct within a period of 10 days.
The protesters also demanded psychological evaluation and retraining for all disbanded SARS operatives before they would be redeployed.
In the same vein, they asked the government to increase the salary of personnel of the Nigerian Police Force and adequately compensate police officers for protecting the lives and property of Nigerians.
For more than a decade, Boko Haram insurgent group has attacked people, especially those in the North-East.
Clashes between Fulani herders and farmers in various parts of the Southern Nigeria have also led to insecurity in the country.
However, clashes between the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Nigerian security agencies have become a major source of insecurity in recent times.
Lukman Abolade is an Investigative reporter with The ICIR. Reach out to him via labolade@icirnigeria.org, on twitter @AboladeLAA and FB @Correction94