THE Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President, Mr Femi Adesina has said that Nigeria has many faults working against the realisation of peace and prosperity of the country.
He listed some of these faults to include religion, ethnicity, language, nepotism and lately, the fake news.
Adesina, spoke on Monday in Abuja at the “Naija Youth Talk,” focusing on the “The Nigeria We Want” organised by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as part its global Youth Talks.
He said: Nigeria has plenty of faults like religion; he doesn’t belong to the religion I espouse, so he is an enemy. Ethnicity; he does not come from my ethnic stock, so I must favour a member of my ethnic stock above him.
“Language; he doesn’t speak my language, when he is around, I will begin to speak my language with other people that share the same with me. Language that is supposed to be a unifying factor, is a divisive factor in Nigeria.
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“Nepotism; I will favour somebody from my ethnic stock so that they can have an advantage over others,” he said.
He said it was unfortunate that what is happening in the country today is Nigerians warring against their fellow citizens.
He said: “Youths have a right to want a country because the country belongs to them. In fact, they are the future of the country. So they have a right to want a certain kind of country because they are critical stakeholders and a very important one at that.
“They have always said that they are the future of a country and has become trite, like a cliche but it is true. They have a right to want a country where there is no xenophobia, and nobody will tell us to go back to your country.
“If we have the kind of country we want, why would we go and become second class or third class citizens anywhere else? We should get the kind of country we want,” he said.
Adesina stresses that for Nigerians youths to get that kind of country they desire, citizens must love Nigeria as a country, adding that if the country is loved, “it would reciprocate by loving us.”
He said: “The question is do we love this country? There is nothing better than loving the unlovable. If you love the lovable, you have not done anything. But if you love the unlovable that is when you have done something.
The Presidential spokesman said Nigerians must get to the point where they see the country as their and willing to commit to rebuilding the country.
He insisted that as young people, the youth have a stake in this country urging them to see to the success of Nigeria.
UNICEF Country Representative, Peter Hawkins, noted that Nigeria’s youth bulge is one of the largest in the world, adding that of a population of 200 million, more than 64 million persons are in the 15 to 35-year age bracket normally categorized as young persons.
He noted that many Nigerian children and young people are being left behind, especially when it comes to education.
Nigeria has the world’s highest number of out-of-school children. More than 10.5 million Nigerian children are not in school.
He said UNICEF and partners want to build on the momentum of young people as it commemorates the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child this year and keeps youth voices at the centre of the debate.
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