President Muhammadu Buhari has criticised Nigerian youths, accusing them of wanting to “sit and do nothing, and get housing, healthcare, education free”.
Buhari said this Wednesday at the Commonwealth Business Forum, on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Head of Governments Meeting (CHOGM) currently ongoing in Westminster, United Kingdom.
The president said that the fact that Nigeria is an oil-producing economy has created the erroneous belief in the country’s young population that everything should come for free.
He said, “About the economy, we have a very young population, our population is estimated conservatively to be 180 million. This is a very conservative one.
“More than 60 percent of the population is below 30, 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, healthcare, education free.
“Recently, my minister for information was constrained to answer a question on people accusing this administration of doing nothing, he said ‘let Nigerians be reminded what position we were before May 2015, what condition we are now, and what we have achieved between then and now and I think people were impressed with the answer.
“For security, we have done quite well. Economy, we are doing very well, especially with agriculture; we are providing soft loans, and guarantee is that you have to belong to a certain locality and you have got land, you don’t have to go to the bank and need a physical collateral. I think a lot is being done.”