Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, has said that youths are topmost on the agenda of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

Onyeama stated this when he received in audience, the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth, Jayathma Wickramanayake, in Abuja.

Onyeama said it was in affirmation of his place of importance for the youth that the President, in his address to the United Nations General Assembly last year, called for the establishment of United Nations Youth.

“We have UN Women and we talk about the youth bulge. It is perfectly logical for us and we feel that it makes a lot of sense to establish that.

“So, we are very supportive in all that and Africa of course, not just Nigeria, we have a youth bulge and it is very much part of our plan for the future, in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and also, in the Agenda 2063 of the African Union, the youth component is very, very prominent in that,” Onyeama said.

Onyeama further said to empower and give a voice to the youth, the youth have to obviously participate in the process of just chatting the way forward globally.

“It is interesting because our President was just appointed the African Union champion for anti-corruption and he made an address on his sort of vision and roadmap for the year and one of the things he indicated, was that he was going to be organising youth fora to get the youth on board in the fight against corruption and promotion of good governance on the continent,” Onyeama stated.

Onyeama added that the future belonged to the youth, saying it was absolutely important that the youth get right behind it. So, at all levels, we are really taking the issue and empowerment of youth very seriously.

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“In the country, we have an Economic Recovery and Growth Plan and the Social Intervention Programme within our plan and a large component of that is going to be devoted to the youth: youth unemployment, skills development and vocational training and job creation for the youth,” Onyeama said.

He further identified the issue of girl-child education as a challenge in the country, saying that a lot of work will be done in that regard to address the issue.

Onyeama also brought the issue of irregular migration to the attention of the visiting UN envoy, saying that the issue captured the importance of what the nation has to be doing for the youth.

“So, we are very alive to our responsibilities with regards to youth and that informs our support for you, for your office, for the UN’s efforts in this context. We will really do everything possibly we can to make it a success,” Onyeama also said.

Speaking earlier, Wickramanayake said she was in the country to listen to Nigerian youths.

She, however, said issues on education such as girls’ education, rights of girls and young women were at the heart of her visit.

Investment in sexually reproductive health, information, investing in participatory mechanism for young people to participate in decision-making processes, were some of the issues she is in the country to advance.

The issue of irregular migration, she added, was also of paramount importance on her agenda.

“We really hope that Nigeria can play a leading role, leading up to the global compact to really bring the voices of the African group, but also mainly of young people to the negotiations in New York,” Wickramanayake said.