By Shina Abubakar, Osogbo

Nigeria’s former envoy to the Philippines, Dr Yemi Farounmbi has disclosed that the 30-day youth conference of the Federal Government cannot address the challenges facing the country.

President Bola Tinubu during his nationwide broadcast on Independence Day said the federal government would organise 30 days conference for the youths to discuss the problem of the country as the ones who own its future.

However, Dr Farounmbi said the conference would only give the youths a sense of belonging but would not address the root cause of the nation’s problem.

He opined that the country is due for another National Conference, where stakeholders should speak truth to one another on which direction the country should face.

“The President’s speech is a rehearse of what he has been doing and the policies and actions he has been taking, the combination of which brought us to where we are. He also said he had heard the loud voices of the people which is a very good thing although the speech, perhaps did not address the root cause of the public outcry.

“The Youth Conference the President talked about, I honestly don’t think it is addressing the root cause of our problem which has to be deformed federalism, restructuring, lack of institutions, which I think are the critical things we’ll need to address to be able to get all our economic reforms in place.

“For me, I don’t think the youth would be able to talk about anything substantive in terms of the problems that we have in the nation. It might give them the pleasure of being consulted but I think that what we need is not the youth conference, we need a national conference in this country. All of us should sit down honestly and look at our structural, political, societal and moral problems.

“We need to discuss issues that would enable the creativity of Nigerians to be utilized and that we guarantee that each Nigerian will be able to develop his talent. We cannot address the hunger in the country or the poverty that is growing or the centrifugal tendency of those seeking to secede, such as the Yoruba Nation, IPOB the Ijaw nation and so on”.