Onaiyekan: Nigeria "uninhabitable" for young people | General news

The Catholic Archbishop of Abuja warned Nigerian leaders to make the country "uninhabitable", pushing young people to migrate illegally to Europe.

Cardinal John Onaiyekan said that if he was the president, he would resign.

He blamed officials for focusing only on their own lives: building mansions and traveling the world.

The 75-year-old cleric said he was ashamed when he saw Nigerian women victims of trafficking mobilize in the streets of Rome and other Italian cities.

Cardinal Onaiyekan was talking to the media before a church rally to discuss the migration to be held Tuesday in the Nigerian capital.

In February, President Muhammadu Buhari was re-elected to Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer, where about a quarter of the working-age population is unemployed.

Several thousand Nigerians have tried the dangerous journey across the Sahara and the Mediterranean to visit Europe in recent years.

The numbers are down – from 40,000 arrivals in Italy by sea in 2016 to 1,250 last year, partly because of tougher measures taken by the EU to fight smugglers.

Many Nigerian migrants come from the south of the state of Edo, a well-established base for smugglers.

Women and girls are often trafficked out of the country after being promised a job – but many are forced to prostitute themselves.

"To tell you frankly that I am ashamed, ashamed – great cardinal of Abuja, I am moving in the streets of Rome, Milan, Naples and I see my girls on the street for sale," said the cardinal at the BBC after the press conference.

"I am ashamed and I stop and even greet some of them.You can not even engage them in a conversation because they were taken out of the village illiterate." what they learn and all they know about the streets of Italy, that's what they need for this business – I'm ashamed. "

The top Catholic official hit Nigerian politicians, saying that if they did not see how to develop the country and provide adequate security, they should not engage in politics.

He urged the government to "repair Nigeria" so that instead of migrating young people, tourists flock to the country of West Africa and that Nigerians can travel with dignity.

Nigeria is the continent's most populous nation – and a deeply religious society, with mainly Muslims living in the north and Christians mainly in the south.