Former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, has expressed fear over the future of Nigeria under the President Muhammadu Buhari- led administration, as well as other African leaders.
Sources within the Presidential Villa, have confirmed that top members of the Buhari administration are currently studying the strongly worded message coming from Obasanjo.
Obasanjo, gave this remark while receiving the newly appointed President of ECOWAS Commission, Marcel Alain de Souza, at his Abeokuta residence.
According to him, Nigeria and other African countries might be sitting on a gun powder, owing to the hard economic situation being experienced under the Buhari administration.
He said the hazards of the lingering and increasing youth unemployment in the country is alarming, stressing that urgent measures must be taken to cushion its effect.
“On the issue of unemployment, particularly youth unemployment, I have maintained that all of us in West Africa, in our different countries and indeed in Africa, we are sitting on a keg of gun powder, for as long as we do not pay adequate attention to youth unemployment.”
He further added: “A situation where more than 50 percent of our youths are unemployed, is extremely dangerous. We now have a situation in part of West Africa, where people now are dying of starvation.
“Is it that we are not producing enough food, or if we are producing what we produced evenly, whatever it is, it is shameful, it has led us to be begging international community for supply of food to any part of West Africa, it is not right?”
Obasanjo, who was a special envoy of ECOWAS to Guinea-Bissau, while playing host to Souza and other delegates, noted that the sub-regional body was yet to meet the goals for which it was constituted 41 years ago.
He said: “So the attention that we should have paid to the original objectives, which is economic integration, economic development, socio economic, economic progress, we have been diverted.“Of course peace and security is the foundation of any socio-economic development and growth. Of necessity, we have to pay attention to base on security.”
Meanwhile, the former President has been a recent critic of the present administration, describing Buhari as not too knowledgeable about the economic revival of the country
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