No fewer than 300 persons including rehabilitated drug addicts, women and youths have been empowered by the National Agriculture Land Development Authority (NALDA), with livestock, as part of its empowerment programmes in Kano State.
The Authority working in collaboration with the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and Salamah Youth Empowerment and Enlightenment Initiative, gave out 300 goats to 100 women, 100 cows for 200 youth at Central Abattoir, Kofarmazugal, Kano.
In the programme, 100 women got three goats each while 200 youth received one cow for two persons.
The Nation learnt that the first phase of the empowerment programme targeting
500 beneficiaries, comprises 400 men and 100 women.
Speaking during the presentation ceremony, the Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of NALDA, Prince Paul Ikonne, said the first phase of the programme in the state will be completed next month.
Ikonne, who said the Authority is targeting to empower 500 beneficiaries in the programme, noted that the remaining 200 beneficiaries will be empowered in coming weeks.
He said the beneficiaries would be trained on animal husbandry and financial capacity to enhance their ability to manage the business.
He said: “We have empowered the first 300, the remaining 200 will be done soon in the first phase in Kano by March.
“This will be done in different states, and we want to encourage other organisations to reach out to these drug addicts in order to rehabilitate them and NALDA will engage them in meaningful means of income through agricultural value chains”.
Speaking further, Ikonne said NALDA is organising the programme in partnership with an organisation that has been rehabilitating children from drugs so as to keep them out of the acts by engaging them meaningfully.
According to him, “if they are left without empowerment, they would go back to drug taking.
“It is President Muhammadu Buhari’s interest to ensure that we eradicate drug addiction and create employment in the country. So, this is a way of keeping them out of drugs and engaging them meaningfully.
On supervision of the empowered men and women, Ikonne said since they are registered with the organisation, it makes it easier for monitoring.
“The organisation becomes our watch dogs, and the NDLEA that have rehabilitated the beneficiaries are also part of the process, that makes the monitoring easier, because there are organisations on ground working with us.
“In the next three months, they would have sold the cows and the money put in the poll, and another set of cows will be given to them, so the profit goes to them and the capital is re-invested.
“That is why, doing it in a cluster with an organisation is the best. Now this is done in an abattoir, and inside the abattoir, they have an association, they will be supervised by these organisations, so it makes it easier for us to monitor.
“As they keep evolving the fund, it makes it easier for us to empower more people. And encourage more people not to go into drugs.
“But for women given goats, will rear it for six months to one year depending on the size o f the goat but our key interest is on those that have been rehabilitated, that is the youths from the abattoir, they are the ones we are looking at three months”, Ikonne added.
In her remarks, the initiator of Salamah Youth Empowerment and Enlightenment Initiative, Senator Naja’atu Bala Muhammed representing Kano Central Senatorial District, while commending NALDA’s intervention, said it is the best any parastatal have ever done in Kano.
Also, the NDLEA commandant in Kano, Alhaji Isah Mahammed, while commending NALDA for the initiative, said it has been discovered that youth idleness is one of the major causes of drug abuse.
“With this, they would now face their business while turning away from drugs, that is why NDLEA is happy to associate with the Authority to ensure that drug abuse is alleviated from among the youth”, he said.