Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on Sunday said the Nigerian government lacks the capacity to address challenges facing the nation, calling on stakeholders, elder statesmen and the Nigerian people to help in rescuing the country which he noted is on the precipice.

Atiku was reacting to a recent report by Bloomberg Business that tagged Nigeria as the nation with the highest unemployment rate in the world.

“I have never felt so bad at being proven right, as I am by the report from Bloomberg Business on Saturday, March 27, 2021 that Nigeria is to emerge as the nation with the highest unemployment rate on Earth, at just over 33 per cent”.

“We are at a precipice as a nation and the truth is that all stakeholders and elder statesmen have to speak up on time, while there is still a Nigeria to save,” the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 election said in a series of tweets on his official handle.

“This government obviously lacks the capacity to address our current challenges, and we must help them, not because of the government, but because of our people.”

While linking the “unprecedented” level of insecurity in Nigeria to youth unemployment, Atiku said education is the key to addressing the menace.

“I say this because the fastest way to bring down a world record unemployment rate is via incentivized education. An educated citizenry are more employable and more self employable,” Atiku, Nigeria’s Vice President between 1999-2007, said.

“We warned about this, but repeated warnings by myself and other patriots were scorned. And now this”.

“How did Nigeria get here? We got here by abandoning the people centred leadership and free trade and deregulatory policies of the Obasanjo years (which saw us maintain an almost single digit unemployment rate)”.

“Increased education has been scientifically linked with lower rates of crime and insecurity, along with lower infant and maternal mortality, and a higher lifetime income.”

Even though he commended the Federal Government for the Special Public Works programme targeted at creating 774,000 jobs, the former vice president, said “it must be done with proper agenda, rather than propaganda.”

He also rued the rising number of out of school children in Nigeria.

The figure for out of school children (aged 5-14 years) in Nigeria is pegged at 10.5m, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), a development which Atiku warned that if not addressed will further plunge the nation into chaos.

“If we do not do this, then the floodgates of unemployment will be further opened next year, and in the years to come,” he warned in the thread captioned ‘World’s Highest Unemployment Rate: Time To Help This Government Help Nigeria.’

If we can get the 13.5 million out of school Nigerian children into school, we will turn the corner in one generation. If we do not do this, then the floodgates of unemployment will be further opened next year, and in the years to come.

He noted that as a nation, we are better off privatising our refineries and the NNPC through the time-tested LNG model in which the FG owns 49% equity and the private sector 51%.

Recall that in 20 years ending 2020, the NLNG had delivered $18.3 billion dividends to government irrespective of taxes and other benefit accruals to the country.

This will not only free the government of needless so endings, but also clean up the infrastructure mess in the petroleum downstream sector.