Comrade Abdul-Salam Ashade, the Coordinator, National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) at the weekend said the country has been fraught with insecurity challenges for over one decades.
Ashade stated this during the 2021 International Youth Day Security Summit organised by NYCN Badagry Federation in Sultan Beach, Badagry, Lagos.
According to the coordinator, when it comes to the issue of Insecurity, for over a decade, Nigeria has been fraught with insecurity challenges, from Boko Haram and their ISWAP counterparts to Bandits and unknown gun men.
“In the midst of all this, the statistics of unemployed youths and graduates in the nation has been rising to an alarming rate.
“The basic development infrastructures like electricity to enhance the industrialization of the nation in order to create employment opportunities has been lacking, thereby crippling other efforts to drive the economic resurgence of the 7th most populous nation in the world.
“It is a fact that the issue of insecurity in the nation has invincible social sponsors like poverty and unemployment which has contributed to frustration and anger that can result to one taking to armed robbery, kidnapping.
“This has also resulted to some people pitching tent with agitators calling for dissolution of the nation under the guise of revolutionaries thereby creating more panic in the society,” he said.
Comparing the country to the state of insecurity in Badagry, Ashade decried the rate at which security operatives were killing innocent youths under the coverage of securing borders.
‘The issue of insecurity in Badagry can be seen from recent killing of a final year student of Kankon Senior Secondary School by the customs officers.
“The innocent boy was coming from the farm where he went to work when the bullet of the customs that were looking for smugglers cut him down.
“Also Police harassment and illegal extortion on a daily basis on the Lagos Badagry Express Road is another insecurity in the coastal town,” he said.
Ashade said that Badagry had this year recorded two occasions where the Hausa commercial Okada rider killed two suspected motorcycles robbers by burning them alive in Ibereko, in Olorunda LCDA.
“We have also recorded an instance
where Fulani herdsmen attacked one of our youth farm and many more vices that can’t be mentioned,” he said.
Also, Comrade David Aladeotan, the Coordinator, NYCN Badagry West LCDA said the youth were not happy with continual killing of their counterpart by the security operatives under the guise of securing border.
Aladeotan called on the security agencies to train and retrain their personnel at the check points to ensure unnecessary killing of innocent youths is stopped, adding that the youth in the town had been moved to the wall.
In his remarks, Comrade Peter
Yehwenu, the Coordinator, NYCN, Badagry LG urged the security operatives to always ensure constant engagement of the youth to bridge the gap in communication and enhance collaboration among them.\
The security operatives in attendance includes Nigerian Army, Air Force, Nigeria Customs, Nigeria Police, Civil Defense, DSS and Federal Road Safety Corp (FRSC).