Atiku and PDP slam Buhari for failing to include any youths among his ministerial nominees

NIGERIA'S main opposition the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has castigated President Muhammadu Buhari for overlooking the youth when he submitted his list of 43 ministerial nominees to the senate yesterday.

Since being sworn-in on May 29, President Buhari has kept the nation waiting with his list of ministerial nominees as it had been expected that he would send the names to the senate for verification immediately he assumed office for his second tenure. Yesterday, however, the waiting ended with the president submitted his list that included several of his key loyalists such as Festus Keyamo, Rauf Aregbesola and Godswill Akpabio to the National Assembly.

Dismissing the list, however, former vice president Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the PDP presidential candidate in the last elections, declared that there is no hope for Nigerian youths under the administration of President Buhari. Ambassador Aliyu Abbas, Alhaji Abubakar's special assistant on youths and support groups, said the president has again exposed his hatred for youths with their absence in the ministerial list sent to the senate for confirmation.

Mr Abbas said: “The future has no patience for leadership that is bereft of a roadmap for youth educational advancement, real-time economic empowerment and large scale middle level sectoral growth in both rural and urban areas. Worse still, the refusal by General Buhari to include and involve the youths of Nigeria in the mainstream of his government is a clear indication of wilful hatred for them, as he has no plans other than use them for electoral classifications and dump them afterwards.

“During a business conference in London, the United Kingdom, Buhari was quoted to have said that the youths do nothing and want everything for free in the oil-rich country. According to General Buhari, a lot of them haven’t been to school and they are claiming that Nigeria is an oil-producing country, therefore, they should sit and do nothing and get housing, health care, education, free."

He added that it is unfortunately that the youths did not show President Buhari that they were not lazy and uneducated by voting against him in 2019. According to Mr Abbas, it is on record that the future of Nigerian youths was mortgaged by past leaders like President Buhari, who had everything at their beck and call as youths.

“He doesn’t love them. It is painful that the president could describe youths in Nigeria that were daily struggling to make a living under a harsh economy as lazy people.

“These same lazy youths were hoodwinked into the fake chants of Sai Baba, Sai Baba and falsely led on to believe in the lies embedded in their chosen next level that today has turned into a dishevelled and distressing agony in the lives of Nigerians. We have never had it so bad as people cannot travel freely between towns and villages because of kidnappings and ritual killings and Boko Haram, on the other hand, has intensified its ramifications and killing young Nigerian soldiers at will.

"Yet the youths who make up over 60% of the population are not deemed fit to be elevated into performing administrative roles in government. General Buhari chose a retinue of recycled old politicians, many of whom are standing trial in courts for embezzlement of public funds, so where lies the so-called pursuit of integrity and fight against corruption?” Mr Abass added.