Tinubu’s ‘Final Solution’ To Insecurity, Unemployment

Tinubu

 Tinubu’s ‘Final Solution’ To Insecurity, Unemployment On the evening of November 9, 1938, carefully orchestrated anti-Jewish violence “erupted” throughout the Reich, which since March had included Austria. Over the next 48 hours, rioters burned or damaged more than 1,000 synagogues and ransacked and broke the windows of more than 7,500 businesses. 

Some 30,000 Jewish men between the ages of 16 and 60 were arrested and sent to concentration camps. The German people—sought the “final solution to the Jewish question,” the murder of all Jews— men, women, and children—and their eradication from the human race. Of course, the final solution promoted by Hitler and his ilks were condemnable when it happened and is still condemnable today in all ramifications. But that was basically how the lexicon, the ‘final solution’ entered the realm of political and social discourse. 

Today in Nigeria, the country is facing existential problem largely caused by unprecedented insecurity with a large swath of lands in North East, North West and North Central under the control of violent non-state actors like Boko Haram, bandits, herdsmen and their franchise, no matter how desperately the government of the tries to deny this obvious reality. Nigeria is also in the grips of the highest unemployment rate in its history. A report from Bloomberg Business on Saturday, March 27, 2021 says that Nigeria is to emerge as the nation with the highest unemployment rate on earth, at just over 33%. According to Statista.com, the unemployment rate in Nigeria is estimated to reach 32.5 per cent in 2021. The unemployment rate during the fourth quarter of, 2020 was 33.3%, an increase from the 27.1% recorded in second, 2020 as reported by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). 

These figures are damning and troubling especially with a government that appears overwhelmed by the challenges. While the government appears incapacitated on what to do about the existential threat of insecurity and crippling unemployment, little did it know that the solution has been with the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the Jagaban Borgu and former governor of Lagos State, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The trouble was that he had kept it to himself and refused to share it with his party and President Muhammadu Buhari. He had to wait till his 69th birthday to unveil this final solution. And what a solution it was! 

Speaking at the colloquium to mark his 69th birthday in Kano, Tinubu said 50 million youths should be drafted into the army while some engage in agriculture. “Recruit 50 million youths into the army, take away from their (the bandits’) recruitment source,” he said. “What they will eat? Cassava, corn, yam in the afternoon… it is grown here. You create demand and consumption for over five million army of boot camps.” If this number is recruited into the Nigerian Army, the country’s army will become the biggest in the world. As a matter of fact worldwide in 2009, there were 20.5 million people — or one out of every 330 — serving in the armed forces, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) report, "The Military Balance 2009." There were also an estimated 49.8 million reservists and 7 million serving in paramilitary units. China had the biggest military, with 2.185 million in the armed services.

Countries with at least half a million military personnel, according to the aforementioned IISS report are; China: 2.185 million; United States: 1.54 million; India: 1.281 million; North Korea: 1.106 million; Russia: 1.027 million; South

Korea: 687,000; Pakistan: 617,000; Iraq: 577,000; Iran: 523,000; Turkey: 511,000. 

For a solution that must have been well thought out as Asiwaju is touted as one of the best political strategists alive in Nigeria today, it fell short on the process for the funding of 50million more soldiers at a time when the government of the day struggles to pay federal civil servants that are just a fraction of the 50million army that Tinubu talked about. 

Not forgotten is the fact that many state governments across Nigeria could not pay the new minimum wage of N30,000. Tinubu’s solution is not the much-needed final solution to our insecurity and unemployment quagmire. And Tinubu knows it, but the thinly veiled 2023 presidential ambition that he has beclouded his judgement. He needed a sound bite that would put him on the cover pages of national dailies and portray him as the man with the Midas touch to address these problems. And he got it in the Kano audience who nearly brought the roof down when he called for the recruitment of 50million youths into the army by the rousing applause that he received. But those in the audience were the elite that put the country in its present precarious situation. 

However, on the streets people were making jest of the Jagaban and the social media was on fire against the man who wants to be the next president. Like a crafty politician that he is, Tinubu following the backlash his postulations generated has retracted his statement in Kano claiming that he misspoke on the number of youths to be recruited into the army to address the twin challenges of insecurity and unemployment. The former governor of Lagos in a statement by his spokesperson, Tunde Rahman, said it was an “accidental verbal mistake” when he said so at a colloquium to celebrate his 69th birthday. He disclosed that he meant 50,000 youths recruitment into the security architecture of the country.