Former presidential aspirant, Prof Pat Utomi, has accused the Nigerian government of failing in building trust in the nation’s youths, adding that the younger generation is being treated like idiots.
Utomi made the assertion during an interview on Channels Television’s ‘Sunrise Daily’ on Thursday.
According to the Political economist, “governments have not been trustworthy in Nigeria”.
While reacting to President Bola Tinubu’s forthcoming National Youth Conference, Utomj noted that it may not yield the expected results without building trust.
“There are models of how you build trust. But the first thing is by you doing the right thing and building up what they call emotional bank account.
“Every time you say you are going to do something and you do exactly what you said, you make a deposit in the emotional bank account.
“Any time you don’t do exactly what you say, you make a withdrawal. And ultimately, whether you are believable is a function of the balance in that emotional bank account, the governments have not been trustworthy in Nigeria, let’s be very frank.
“The Nigerian government has treated young people like they are idiots, repeatedly. This is sad because most governments in Nigeria were first run by young people during the military rule.
“If you think about military rule, most of them were in their 20s and 30s, but something in the nature of the command hierarchy of the military compounded by oil coming in, led to a beginning crystallisation of a new class system in Nigeria.”
