A youth leader Almustapha Abdullahi has said President Muhammadu Buhari would not have degraded the Nigerian youth, insisting that the president "loves the youth."
Almustapha who said he is a Presidential aspirant of the National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYSN), made this statement while addressing a Press Conference in Abuja on Monday.
"President Muhammadu Buhari did not refer to all Nigerian youth as lazy and unwilling to go to school in that statement he made on Wednesday in London," he said.
Almustapha said Buhari had always applauded and celebrated the Nigerian youth who are excelling in different areas of endeavours.
President Buhari had in a Commonwealth Business Meeting said that: “We have a very young population; our population is estimated conservatively to be 180 million. More than 60 per cent of the population is below the age of 30.
“A lot of them have not been to school and they are claiming that Nigeria has been an oil producing country, therefore they should sit and do nothing and get housing, healthcare and education free.”
But the youth leader said: "It is true that Mr. President values the youth so much and he knows that they are the fulcrum on which the future of the country rests."
While noting that the idle youth population was a huge burden on Buhari’s administration, adding that it was the responsibility of government at all levels to create an enabling environment for the youths to actualize their dreams.
The youth leader expressed worries over the abysmal drive in some parts of northern Nigeria, calling on all necessary authorities to rise up to the occasion and reverse the ugly phenomenon.