The survey indicated that young Nigerians have the most negative opinion in the whole continent about the direction their country is headed.

Ninety-five per cent of Nigerian youths do not believe President Muhammadu Buhari is leading the country in the right direction, a survey has indicated.

Africa Youth Survey 2022, which featured respondents from 15 countries was undertaken by the South African Ichikowitz Family Foundation.

Conducted among 4,500 young people in Africa, aged 18-24, the survey found that a majority of the sampled youths are likely to consider emigration citing economic hardship and education opportunities as major reasons.

The survey published by the BBC indicated that young Nigerians have the most negative opinion in the whole continent about the direction their country is headed.

Since assuming the reins of power in 2015, Mr Buhari has supervised two economic recession, with unemployment rate peaking at a record 33.3 per cent in the last quarter of 2020, per the country’s statistics bureau.

Worsening insecurity has also affected livelihoods as bandits and terrorists occupy vast ungoverned spaces, killing, kidnapping and maiming at will and scaring farmers off fields thereby threatening food security.

Energy costs to power small businesses and households have also undergone incessant hikes. Cooking gas, diesel, petrol and jet fuel are now at prohibitive costs above the purchasing power of everyday Nigerian.

In November 2021, frontline traditional ruler, the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, said that the current economic hardships are “pushing our young people to explore illegal migration,” in search of greener pasture.

Mr Ogunwusi said illegal migration was being fuelled by “the failure of our governance and leadership,” calling for a “collective national allegiance of building a nation that prioritizes its future generation and bequeath to them prosperity, peace, and human dignity.”

[Peoples Gazette]