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The President of the African Development Bank, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, said in Lagos during the 2023 Obafemi Awolowo Prize for Leadership that the future of Nigerian youths is rooted in Nigeria, not in any other country.
Adesina, who was honored with the 2023 Obafemi Awolowo Prize for Leadership Award, addressed the audience, which included former heads of state, state governors, royal figures, and other distinguished individuals.
He urged Nigerians to collectively contribute to making their country an attractive and sustainable place to live, discouraging the notion of it being an escape destination.
“I refuse to believe that the future of Nigeria’s and Africa’s youths lie in Europe, North America, Asia, or anywhere else. I believe that their future must lie in Africa, growing well, robustly, able to create quality jobs and decent earnings for our young people.
“There is absolutely no reason in the world how we have a demographic asset that then becomes a global negative externality. Let’s take pride in ourselves and let’s make our demographic asset our economic asset globally. I firmly believe that their future lies right here in Nigeria,” he said.
The former Minister of Agriculture from 2011 to 2015 expressed dissatisfaction with the migration to other countries by Nigerians, especially youths, as it does not develop sustainability.
“While one might argue that our growing diaspora is good as they send back billions of dollars, higher than the oil revenue that we have, this is not the way to develop sustainably.
“Nations that develop do all they can to keep their best human capital at home and additional resource skills elsewhere, with flexible immigration and labour policies,” he said.
He said AfDB unveiled a $614m programme to support Nigeria’s digital and creative enterprise to create 6.3 million jobs and add N6.4bn to the economy.
“I always say to myself, how can we have 477 million people under the age of 35 and there are no financial institution? That means we have missing institution and market failure problems and that is why the African Development Bank decided that we will create what we call Youths Entrepreneurship Investment Bank,” Adesina added.
Speaking about the event, former Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon (retd.), described Adesina as a brilliant man, who “represents the best of Nigeria.”
“The choice of Dr Akinwumi Adesina can only be described as having been very well done. He represents the best of Nigeria, hardworking, diligent, brilliant, forward-looking, and deeply patriotic,” Gowon stated.
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