Bola Tinubu Apologises, Says He Meant 50,000 Youths Not 50 Million Over Colloquium

 

Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, former Lagos state governor and national leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) on Wednesday said he committed an accidental verbal mistake when he asked the Federal Government to recruit 50 million youths into the Nigerian Army in a bid to oust the insurgents and miscreants threatening the nation’s peace.

In a statement issued by his media office, Tinubu said he meant 50,000 youths and not 50 million youths, which is about a quarter of Nigeria’s population.

In his address at the 12 Bola Tinubu Colloquium held in Kano, Tinubu had said the insurgents and bandits are taking advantage of the high unemployment in the country and are recruiting the youths to indulge in their criminal activities.
He emphasized that the nation is under-policed, adding that drafting the youth into various national security agencies should not be based solely on educational qualification or literacy.

We are under-policed and we're competing with armed robbers and bandits to recruit from the youths who're unemployed —33 according to cent unemployed? Recruit 50 million youths into the navy, what they will devour —cassava, corn, yam, will develop here.

However on Wednesday, the APC chief stated what he canvassed for became attractive 5 million youths in all factors of country-building, starting from infrastructural improvement to agricultural modernization, and recruitment of fifty,000 youths into the army.

The full announcement reads “The 12th Bola Tinubu Colloquium marking Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s birthday become a nicely-attended event that targeted on the crucial subject of countrywide concord for the duration of those tough times”.

“This become the first time the colloquium became held within the historic and vital city of Kano. The desire of venue changed into maximum suitable given the topic and the underlying goal of highlighting the oneness of the country and the want for cohesion so that Nigeria may additionally acquire its excellent future”.

“Speaking on the occasion, Asiwaju Tinubu canvassed the urgent want to mix employment and country wide safety coverage by way of the recruitment of five million youths in all aspects of country-building, ranging from infrastructural development to agricultural modernization.

He believes that the more task opportunities are provided to our young people the much less a number of them may be tempted into unlawful and threatening activities”.

“As a part of this standard method, he believes that eligible teenagers must be recruited into the militia, police and other safety businesses to reinforce the useful capability of our protection equipment for this reason making sure the better security and protection of our people”.

“Asiwaju seeks the growth of security personnel via 50,000 for the military no longer the N50 million that became cited in blunders. It was an unintentional verbal mistake of which we all commit from time to time specially whilst reciting a chain of big numerical figures.

He did now not mean N50 million, which is sort of 1 / 4 of our general populace”.

“The essential matter is that Asiwaju rightly discovered that such sturdy recruitment could serve the dual-reason of helping to address unemployment while at the equal time improving the security of every Nigerian.

Please forgive any confusion because of this innocent errors. The maximum vital thing is that he set forth a smart and well timed approach that would help us face two of nowadays’s stiffest challenges”.

“It is within the spirit that we hope you view and check his inspiration for it seeks to provide a manner for more youths to take part in building a extra, safer and extra rich us of a”