Senator representing Rivers East, Andrew Uchendu says his colleagues can power 5 million youths if they sell off some of their cars.
He said this, during a debate at the Senate on Thursday.
His colleague Shehu Sani, senator representing Kaduna central, raised the issue of the killing of Faye Mooney, a British tourist, and Matthew Oguche, her Nigerian partner at Kajuru Castle in Kaduna state, last Friday.
However, in his opinion, Uchendu said he believes that unemployment was a big contributor to insecurity in the country. He suggested that if fellow senators would agree to sell their cars and use the proceed to set up a factory, many unemployed Nigerian youths will be engaged.
His words:
“We own three, four, five vehicles and I’m sure we can do much better with two.”
“Our contemporaries in the US, do they own four vehicles on the road? If we dispose of our two vehicles and use the proceeds to set up a small industry, wouldn’t we be engaging five youths – we will be taking more than five million youth from the highway.”
On why recommendations of a security summit held by the Senate had not been implemented
“Under your leadership, there was a security summit, conclusions were reached to study all the contributions and make appropriate recommendations, the question I want to ask is where do we go from there?” he asked.
“Has anything been done, if nothing has been done, why? We come here everything violence and security and all that.
“Who are the key drivers of this process, these killings, the youths. They have two vital assets, time and energy. Until our youths are an engaged, Mr President, this problem will continue.”
