‘EndSARS protesters wouldn’t have been that much if we had more programmes like N-Power’ – Youth Minister tells UNDP audience
For more than 10 days, thousands of young Nigerians who called for an end to the disbanded rogue police unit – the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), took to the streets of Lagos, Abuja, Osun, Ondo, Edo, and other parts of the world for peaceful demonstrations.
The size and scale of the gatherings in different parts of the country that made the EndSARS protests the largest and longest running national protests in the history of Nigeria as well as the insistence of the protesters not to leave the streets until their demands are granted by government have now been linked to the rate of unemployment and underemployment in the country.
Nigeria’s Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, believes that if there were enough government programmes to gainfully engage the young population of the most populous black nation on earth, attendance at the nationwide protests wouldn’t be so overwhelming and unprecedented.
He was speaking on the panel of a youth programme tagged “From Protests to Constructive Engagement – Conversations with young Nigerians, about Nigeria”. The event was organised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Nigeria, in Abuja on Tuesday November 18, 2020.
“There are lessons learnt from the EndSARS protests for the government and the youth,” the Minister said.
Dare added that if there are more programmes like the N-Power, a job creation scheme set up by the Nigerian government to engage youths for two years with a monthly stipend of N30,000, the number of young people who participated in the EndSARS protests may have been minimal.
“Whatever programme the government has, it is now a game of numbers. I told someone jokingly that imagine if apart from the N-power that took 500,000 youths and engaged them for two years, if we have four similar programmes in which the youths have benefitted, perhaps the army of the youth that joined the EndSARS protests wouldn’t have been that much,” he told participants and panelists at the discussion programme monitored virtually by Neusroom.
According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), for Q2 2020, the unemployment rate among young Nigerians (15 – 34years) was 34.9%, up from 29.7%, while the rate of underemployment for the same age group rose to 28.2% from 25.7% in Q3, 2018.
The rates were the highest when compared to other age groupings. This indicates that a high number of the nation’s youth population have no jobs. The few who have jobs have either created a means of survival for themselves in the informal sector with the creative industry accounting for a large number of self-employed young Nigerians. These categories of young people are believed to suffer police harassment and brutality most. Their anger further fuelled the protests which lasted for more than 10 days and garnered global attention.
According to the youth and sports minister “most of our youths, because they are underemployed and frustrated, because of lack of opportunities, saw the protests beyond police brutality, as an opportunity for activism, to speak the truth to power, hold the feet of those in power to the fire and an opportunity to make demands and we’ve seen how that have panned out beyond the five demands made, we’ve seen an expansion of the demands and the desires of the youths and government clearly has its job cut out.”
Government programmes like N-Power and Trader Moni have been criticized for their focus on poverty alleviation as opposed to actual empowerment.
Dare himself, who had paid a visit to the monarch of his hometown in Ogbomoso, Oyo State, was almost caught in the web of the angry protesters when an irate mob attacked the Palace of the Soun of Ogbomoso following the killing of unarmed youths by Police in Ogbomoso on Saturday October 17, 2020.
“What is important now is to move the protest to action, engagement and solutions,” the minister said.
