Tony Elumelu, chairman, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc has reiterated the need to take issues partaining to the young generation on the continent seriously as the future depends on them.
“We now have, as a continent, the largest young generation in history – this youthful population is Africa’s hope, it is our pride and it is our potential.
The urgency and need to unlock the potential of this generation is imperative for the security of our collective future,” Elumelu, also the Chairman of the Heirs Holdings Group as well as the Founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation stated this at a well attended Joshua Generation International Youth Conference at University of Nigeria, Nsukka earlier in the week.
Speaking on, “Unlocking Our Potential, Securing Our Future,” the quintessential banker and global entrepreneur further said, “The youth are our greatest force on the African continent, and events like this that prioritise our youth must be commended.”
He reminded his audience that Africa is the world’s youngest continent with almost 60 percent of her population under the age of 25.
Specifically, he said in Nigeria, youths of 35 years and under are estimated to constitute 70% of the population of the country, but regretted rising rate of joblessness rate to about 30% in March 2021.
He said the situation is not much different in Africa with 65% of all Africans below the age of 35 and many of these people are not gainfully employed.
Indeed, he admitted that the Covid pandemic and resulting lockdowns have exposed the vulnerabilities in our population structure.
He however expressed optimism stressing that all hope is not lost, underscoring the aptiness of the conference and the selected topic as also timely.
Posing a rhetorical questions he said,
“What should we do? How do we unlock the potential of African youth to catalyse the socio-economic development of the continent? ”.
He reminded the audience that youth restiveness is a ticking timebomb and we will continue to face issues daily around vices like, extremism,banditry, robbery, senseless killing as well as political thuggery, among others.
He went further to challenge the organisers on what are been done to stem these, to secure our own future?
First, there must be a high sense of urgency.
Proferring some antidotes, the philanthropist called for a kind of dissatisfaction to what is happening and then a commitment to improving things.
“ We must accept that we face a crucial period in our history where youth issues must be the main and central issue of our time, ” he said.
With burgeoning unemployment market, he advocated for 20 million jobs to be created annually to absorb new entrants into the labour market.
Only about 3 million formal jobs are being created annually across Africa and this was even before the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic outbreak.
“ The estimated annual growth of labour force is 5% whilst employment growth rate is less than 2% across Africa.There is huge and shocking deficit, ” he added
Emphasizing on the relevance of entrepreneurship, Elumelu said,
“For me and my colleagues at UBA, at TEF and across the HH Group, we have come to believe that entrepreneurship-the power of entrepreneurship- is key to harnessing the potential of these young Africans
By so doing, we secure our own future.”
Reiterating on the need for governments at all levels to be involved in providing enabling enviroment and recognizing tax incentives and waivers by the home government, Elumelu said there is not better time than now to bring our youth to the forefront as according to him, “Any further delays will be extremely catastrophic.
We cannot afford to waste the demographic dividend especially as we have millions of youth entering the job-market place yearly.”
He added the way to nurture the youth lies in entrepreneurship, functional and vocational training and moral rejuvenation/moral re-armament and a shift in our value orientation.