The minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed, has reacted to the ongoing outrage over comments by President Muhammadu Buhari, suggesting majority of Nigerian youths are lazy.
Speaking to journalists on Friday, April 20, at the sidelines of the ongoing African Drum Festival in Abeokuta, Ogun state, Alhaji Mohammed said the president was quoted out of context.
He stated that the president has passion and concern for Nigerian youths, as opposed to what the critics of his administration want the people to believe. He dismissed reports quoting President Buhari as describing all Nigerian youths as lazy and always waiting for free things. He noted that the current administration had invested in the youth with some of its programmes.
He said: “Some people have just made it their full-time job these days to scrutinise and twist whatever the president says out of context.
“I wonder how a government that has employed 100,000 unemployed graduates and also feeds about 7.5 million people daily could be tagged anti-youth. “Our social investment programmes have continued to generate jobs and create opportunities for our teeming youths while our empowerment programmes have been providing soft loans to over 400,000 youths.
“This is a government that is so concerned and passionate about youth development and it is not right for people to begin to quote Mr. President out of context and thereby incite the youths against the government.”
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