Aliko Dangote, the President and Chief Executive of the Dangote Group, has said the deadly conflict between suspected herdsmen and farmers in parts of Nigeria is as a result of the country’s increasing unemployment rate.
The richest man in Africa stated this on Tuesday in an interview with Channels Television.
Dangote said, “If there are jobs, there wouldn’t be anything like Boko Haram, there would not be anything like herdsmen. Once you are engaged, you do not have time for mischief.”
The conflict between herdsmen and farmers has been on the rise across the country but the New Year’s Day killings of over seventy people in Benue by suspected Fulani herdsmen has raised ethnic tension across the country.
Dangote believes that the government of President Muhammadu Buhari is doing its best to manage the situation despite criticisms from the general public that the government is complicit in the atrocities being committed by the herdsmen.
“The government is working tirelessly to make sure that we resolve this issue about herdsmen,” he said, pointing out, however, that the government would require support.
“Government cannot do it on its own; we also need to do our own. The government is giving us an opportunity to also create jobs,” he said.
“And I think people are under-rating how many jobs we need to create, not just in Nigeria and Africa, we need to create 12 million jobs every year in Africa.”
To effectively tackle unemployment, the industrialist believes there is a need to turn to Agriculture.
He said, “I think we should focus on agriculture, we should focus on solid minerals, these two can now replace oil.