President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) and former Nigerian Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, has issued a clarion call to Nigeria and other African leaders to move beyond token empowerment initiatives and focus on providing capital that will enable young people transform their ideas into viable enterprises and long-term wealth.

Speaking during an exclusive interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Thursday, Adesina criticised the prevalent culture of offering temporary handouts to the youth, describing them as insufficient and uninspiring.

“Young people don’t need freebies; they don’t need people saying: ‘I just want to give you an empowerment programme’,” Adesina declared. “They have skills, they have knowledge, they have entrepreneurship capacity, they want to turn their ideas into great businesses.”

According to him, what young Nigerians and Africans truly need is financial support that empowers them to act. “They need capital. They need you to put your money at risk on their behalf,” he said.

The AfDB President expressed concern over the mass migration of African youth—a phenomenon popularly referred to in Nigeria as the ‘Japa’ syndrome—describing it as a major loss for the continent.

“In the case of young people and the Japa syndrome, it’s a big loss for us,” he noted. “We have over 465 million young people between the ages of 15 and 35. We cannot afford to turn what should be our demographic asset into somebody else’s problem.”

He stressed that the future of Africa’s youth does not lie in Europe, America, or Asia, but in a thriving and inclusive Africa. “I do not believe that the future of our young people lies in Europe; it doesn’t lie in America, it doesn’t lie in Canada, Japan or China; it should lie in Africa growing well, growing robustly and able to create quality jobs for our young people,” he said.

Dr. Adesina also condemned the African financial system for being structurally inadequate to support youth entrepreneurship.

“The whole of the (banking) system is not designed for young people. The commercial banking system and the financial system failed young people in Africa,” he said. “Where is the financial market for them? Why is it suddenly a surprise to us that they are leaving?”

To address this, he revealed that the AfDB had established the Youth Entrepreneurship Development Bank to finance youth-led businesses and correct institutional gaps in youth funding. He announced that the Bank had recently approved $100 million to establish the Nigerian Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Bank, which is expected to mobilise $2 billion in investment for over 38,000 youth-led enterprises across the continent.

Dr. Adesina concluded by urging governments and institutions to move beyond token gestures and commit substantial investments toward youth development.

“They don’t need N5,000, N10,000. You want to create youth-based wealth. If you don’t, who are the people who will pay the taxes in the future? Where are you going to get the capital mobilisation in the future? You have to therefore invest in the same demographic so you can reap in the future,” he said.

He maintained that Africa’s youth population is not a burden, but a potential engine of prosperity—if only the right investments are made.