The national leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has now denied an earlier statement he made asking the Federal Government to employ 50 million youths to combat insecurity in the Nation.
Tinubu through his spokesperson,Tunde Rahman, on Tuesday, noted that the statement of his principal was a slip of the tongue.
He stressed that he mistakenly asked the government to recruit 50 million instead of 5 million youths into the Nigerian Army to boost the fight against terrorism, banditry and others.
Naija News recalls that Tinubu had made the statement while speaking at a colloquium to celebrate his 69th birthday in Kano State.
“We are under-policed and we are competing with armed robbers and bandits to recruit from the youths who are unemployed. Recruit 50 million youths into the army and take away from their recruitment source, what they will eat cassava, corn, will grow here,” Tinubu said.
“Don’t talk about illiteracy, anybody who can hold a gun, who can handle a gun, who can cock and shoot is technically competent to repair a tractor in the farm.”
Mr Tinubu was heavily criticised by political and non-political actors with some Nigerians describing him as unfit to lead the nation for uttering an unrealistic statement.
Senator Shehu Sani on Twitter asked: “If we have not been able to adequately cater for our 150k soldiers, how do we handle and cater for 50 million armed soldiers on our payroll?”.
Former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, also condemned Tinubu, he questioned, how the Nigerian government will pay them or if they would fight for free.
The former Minister in a series of the post wrote on his Twitter account, “You have asked for 50 million youths to be recruited into the Nigerian Armed Forces & everyone is clapping for you. Do you have 50 million weapons to give them or do you expect them to fight with sticks & stones? Do you have hundreds of millions of dollars to pay them?”