By Christian George
Arewa Youths Consultative Forum has tendered a five-point agenda to President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
This was made known by the National President of the forum, Yerima Shettima.
The group urged the president to focus on security, anti-corruption, economy, agriculture and opening of borders.
The forum opined that the immediate relief of the service chief was a step in the right direction to tackle insecurity by President Tinubu.
“Tinubu is an advocate of restructuring and true federalism, but he might not want to do it directly. For instance, what happened yesterday, was one of the best things he has done by sacking those Service Chiefs.
“This is a clear indication that he is all out to confront insecurity by bringing fresh ideas and people to tackle it,” the forum’s president said.
On anti-corruption, Shettima said that Tinubu is making an effort but needs to do more while commending him on shaking ex-CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, he charged the president to also look into the case of Hadi Sirika “to explain that last-minute scam because that’s an abuse of our sensibilities as Nigerians.”
On the economy, according to Daily Post, he charged the government to stop states’ dependency on federal allocation.
“Though our economy is very bad, the centre can’t hold, state governors should go back to their state and begin to harness their resources.
“If possible, the constitution should be amended rather than depend on federal allocation, states should be useful by ensuring the payment of tax to the centre so that the burden will be lesser at the centre now,” he said.
On agriculture and the opening of the border, the group charged Tinubu to look beyond oil and diversify the economy by looking into agriculture.
“Beyond looking for oil, they should diversify the economy by looking at Agriculture. Let’s have people who know what it takes, even if it means bringing expatriates on how to make agriculture so that that sector can do better.
“Tinubu should open up the land borders for import and export, though with restrictions. The Customs, Immigration and those responsible should know that it won’t be business as usual.
“This will help in ensuring that we don’t have a porous border where everything comes in and goes out,” he said.
