The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress Bola Tinubu has hailed Nigerian youths home and abroad in celebration of International Youth day.

The presidential hopeful, in a video posted on Twitter on Friday, hailed musicians such as Davido, Burna Boy and Tiwa Savage, tech leaders like Odunayo Eweniyi of PiggyVest and the athletes who represented Nigeria at the recently concluded Commonwealth Games in the United Kingdom. 

“It’s the responsibility of the government to find and nurture these talented individuals that their success might bring pride, joy and excitement to our people and renewed hope to generations of Nigerians to come,” Mr Tinubu said. “Nigeria is set to take its rightful place as a global powerhouse and it is the endeavour of younger Nigerians in business and technology, in entertainment and the arts, in politics and sports with the guidance of those that came before to lead the way.”

The 70-year-old presidential hopeful thanked the athletes that won 32 medals at the Commonwealth Games for “showing the world that Nigeria is not just a footballing nation.”

Nigeria has the largest population of youth in the world, with a median age of 18.1 years. About 70 per cent of the population are under 30, and 42 per cent are under the age of 15.  

However, millions of Nigeria’s youth are currently at home due to the halt in the education sector. Nigeria’s tertiary institutions are currently closed due to the ongoing ASUU strike. 

UNICEF had noted in May that Nigeria had 10.5 million of the country’s children aged 5-14 out-of-school children and Statista records about 1.2 million students are enrolled in federal universities for undergraduate studies. 

Other schools in the Federal Capital Territory and northern states have been shut down in light of the multiple security crises happening in certain regions of the country. 

In 2021 alone, over 300 students and employees of secondary and tertiary institutions were kidnapped in the North-Central and North-West regions.