Governments across all levels have been charged to give youths the needed priority in their agenda and plans. This charge was given by Oba Makama Oyelude, Olowu Of Owu-Kuta, at an Interactive session with Southwest Group of Online Publishers (SWEGOP).
The Monarch noted that the youths should be appropriately engaged to reduce the level of crime in the society.
Oba Oyelude also urged the youths to be patriotic and make effective use of their power for the benefits and progress of the country.
He said, “I don’t see the youths that are said to be into crimes rather I see the ones that are excelling. All these communication gap, lack of loyalty among us, that is the vacuum that has been created by ineffectiveness of national orientation agency. It is one thing to listen to the plight of the people you’re ruling, when you don’t involve them, their potentials may not be easily ascertained”.
“Why can’t they do that and let’s see them as President and as governors, they have that capability. Our youths are conscious of their enormous power but they are not using it, we are still being divided. It was during the endsars I knew well that our youths have been bacarnised because what they were saying here in the south is different from what they were saying in the north”.
“Though they said there should be no ethnic profiles of crime but when you’re talking of cyber crime, you talk west, drugs you go east and religious intolerance you go north. We know but we keep quiet and our political leaders know and that’s what they could use to divide us”.
“We would continue to urge the government to live up to their responsibility. There should be adequate laudable programmes while youths who have no jobs should have something to be taking from the Government”, Olowu Kuta said.
While answering questions on the spate of insecurity in the country, Oba Oyelude made it clear that what could bring about a lasting solution is to tackle the problem from the grassroots thus, advocating for the local government autonomy.
The traditional ruler said that the management of security In a country like Nigeria can not be handled only by the federal government though the major responsibility rests on the FG. However, to get to the root cause of insecurity, local governments must be strengthened and given autonomy because all security issues are local in nature.
“Insecurity or Management of security of a country like ours goes beyond government alone but the major responsibility rest on the government. The local government administration should be strengthened and given autonomy. If the local government lacks autonomy, we will still not get to the root cause of insecurity.
“The federal government should allow autonomy of local government administration because all security issue are local. Gone are the days when the local governments have absolute autonomy. In the 774 local governments that we have in this country, we have DPOs, we have police officers, we have Civil Defence Office and we have traditional rulers in every local government.
“So, intelligence gathering and sharing would be easier at that level and funding of those intelligence officers will be easier if the local governments are autonomous”, he said.
The Yoruba Monarch who also lamented that the country’s annual security budget is too low while pointing at Nations who were not at war spending more on security than Nigeria.
He stated that our defence budget is too low citing the instance of the 2022 Army budget being slashed from 721 billion to over 500billion which he considers as a joke.
“For over 16/17 years now, countries In Africa that are not at war, that at at peace have spent more on their defence and security than what we who have been at war has spent. Every reasonable country that wants to be at peace will spend more on defence and security”, he said.
