Army Recruitment: I Mentioned 50 Million Youths In Error, Says Tinubu

National leader of the All Progressives Congress Bola Tinubu on Tuesday said his comments that 50 million Nigerian youth should be recruited into the army was said in error.

The APC chieftain retracted the statement made during his colloquium in Kano on Monday in a press release by his media aide Tunde Rahman.

“Speaking at the event, Asiwaju Tinubu canvassed the urgent need to combine employment and national security policy by the recruitment of 5 million youths in all aspects of nation-building, ranging from infrastructural development to agricultural modernization,” the press release stated.

“He believes that the more job opportunities are presented to our youth the less some of them will be tempted into illegal and dangerous activities.

“As part of this overall approach, he believes that eligible youth should be recruited into the armed forces, police and other security agencies to augment the functional capacity of our security apparatus thus ensuring the better security and safety of our people.

“Asiwaju seeks the expansion of security personnel by 50,000 for the armed forces not the N50 million that was mentioned in error. It was an accidental verbal mistake of which we all commit from time to time especially when reciting a series of large numerical figures.

“He did not mean N50 million, which is almost a quarter of our total population.”

The statement further said the crucial matter was that Tinubu rightly observed that such “strong recruitment would serve the twin-purpose of helping to tackle unemployment while at the same time enhancing the security of every Nigerian.”

Tinubu had come under criticism on social media over the statement.