By Kamsi Anayo
A philanthropist and Chief Executive Officer of the Address Properties Ltd., Chief Simeon Nnakwe has called on the Federal to take urgent steps to curb the increasing number of youths leaving the country in large number in search of better opportunities.
Nnakwe made the call in interview with our Correspondent in Awka on Wednesday.
He said that the exodus of Nigerian youths outside the country was as a result of the inability of the federal and state governments to provide them, particularly those who are qualified, with employment opportunities and enabling environment for self actualization.
“The appropriate federal and state agencies should provide jobs for the youths in order to discourage them from leaving the country,” he said.
He lamented that the youths who would have used their energies to boost the country’s economy from consumption to production have diverted same to internet crime.
Nnakwe added that some Nigerian youths had abandoned education for internet fraud while misconstrued education as a scam because of the high rate of unemployment.
“I am not also happy about the criminal disposition of some Nigerian youths abroad which had brought bad image to the country. Due to such perceived crimes, it is very hard for some Nigerians abroad to boldly introduce themselves as Nigerians,”
Condemning the “Yahoo, Yahoo” syndrome among some Nigerian youths, Nnakwe entreated the Federal Government to find ways to bring a permanent cessation of the practice.
Nnakwe advised parents who he said usually expressed joy that their children were making money out of dubious means to rethink on the amount of curses they were bringing upon their children.
He warned the youths to desist from any form of criminality and duplicity, warning that they would someday suffer the adverse effects of their present actions.
He remarked that if nothing was done urgently to halt the way the youths of the present generation were going after money, “we will soon lose them”.
To him, among the ways to arrest the situation was for the government to revive several moribund industries and companies in the country and also to set up new ones.
