By Henry Umoru
ABUJA—FORMER Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, said yesterday that if Nigeria must curb youth restiveness and violence across the country, there was the urgent need for the government to pay serious attention to education.

According to the 2011 presidential aspirant on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Nigeria needs to invest heavily in education if the citizens must be freed from poverty and the rising tide of violence.

In a statement from his campaign organization, Atiku, who spoke at the launch of an educational endowment fund by Izala Movement, an Islamic group in Jos, the Plateau State capital, stressed that with education, youths would not only be given proper orientation, but also that their energies would be properly channelled into constructive engagements.

The former vice president, who spoke against the background of multiple bomb blasts in which scores of innocent citizens lost their lives in Abuja last Friday, explained how education transformed his life from his rustic village of Jada to becoming a Vice President and now making a bid for the Presidency in 2011.

Atiku made a personal donation of N20m to the endowment fund, and promised to commit a huge chunk of his resources to education of youths if elected in 2011.

He said: “As a result of what education has done to uplift me, I’ve decided to use my resources to provide access to learning to as many citizens as I possibly can.”