By Dada Ahmed in Lokoja
Residents of lokoja, capital of kogi state, have advised the Senate to re-present the bill aimed at legalising the Peace Corps of Nigeria (PCN) as part of effort to enlist jobless youths into the corps and check youths unemployment in the country.
They gave the advice in separate interview with the correspondent of The Reporters in Lokoja on Tuesday.
The residents,who took a critical look at the recent #Endsars saga identified unemployment, especially among the youth as one of the causes of the protests with destruction of public and private properties and some deaths.
According to them, the protest which stated on a peaceful note was later hajacked by many hoodlums and some unemployed youths.
Mr Raphael Asuku, a retired federal civil servant, said:”There is little doubt that unemployment was one of causes if not, the the foundational cause of the recent #Endsars protests in the country.
“Government at all levels must enhance effort to create opportunities for the youth to to be employed, to check youth restiveness and Peace Corps of Nigeria provides such opportunity, if the bill is assented to.
Another resident, Miss Agnes Aliu, an unemployed University graduate, described PCN as a viable paramilitary organisation that could employ more youths yearning to contribute to the social and economic development of the nation.
“I want to appeal to the Senate to go back to the drawing board and again resent the bill passed by previous Senate session to the President for his assent.
“The increasing rate of unemployment in the country calls for bodies, such as the PCN, to be given legal status to absolve an army of unemployed youths to get busy serving their country.
When youths, who constitute the greater percentage of the country’s population are occupied, their minds will stop being the devil’s work shop and Nigeria will record less youth restiveness.
“If the bill is assented to, it will enable the corps to operate as a legal entity and recruit more youths for them to contribute their quota, effectively, to ensure attainment of peace in the country.
Messrs Adamu Issa, Mohammed Ali, Friday Okoliko, Adeiza Aliu among others, who said they had been in unemployment market for an upward of five years now, said they would not mind joining PCN as soon as the bill making it a legal entity becomes a reality.
“If nothing at all, at least, being a PCN member will be an opportunity for me to get a viable job and get out of endless search public jobs.
The Reporters gathered that Nigeria was one of the first countries to receive Peace Corps volunteers in 1961 and since then, its services remain on voluntary basis in the areas of health, education, rural community development, and practical agriculture.
