The Nation Newspaper

Tag: youth

  • Emir of Kano, others to address APC youth conference

    Emir of Kano Muhammed Sanusi (II), in collaboration with the office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, will lead other notable traditional rulers to address a conference of the All Progressives Congress (APC) youths.

    Spokesperson of the APC Youth Forum Rinsola Abiola said other monarchs expected at the conference were the Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi and the Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Nnaemeka Achebe.

    The conference, themed “Strengthening the unity in Diversity”, according to Abiola, is aimed at examining and discussing the concept of the country’s ethnic, regional, religious and political diversity within the context of our national desire, drive and quest for a truly united Nigeria.

    According to her, representatives of ethnic, religious, regional and political youth groups are expected at the conference, to examine the realities from the country’s political, economic and socio-cultural differences, with a view to birthing creative solutions to managing our diversity for national development, and obtaining an acceptable standard for citizenship in Nigeria.

  • BoI restates commitment to youth empowerment

    Capacity building is a potent tool for business development, Bank of Industry (BoI) Acting Managing Director Mr Waheed Olagunju has said.

    Declaring open the Ife Youths Economic Summit at Ile Ife, Osun State, Olagunju restated the bank’s readiness to help youths become successful business owners.

    The summit was co-sponsored by the Ooni of Ile-Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi and Senator Babajide Omoworare.

    Speaking on the theme: “IFEPRENEURSHIP : Building Entrepreneurship Competency and Self-Reliance Among Ife Youths,” he advised youths to be empowered in capacity before venturing into business.

    Olagunju urged participants at the summit not to see whatever financial benefit in terms of loans, grants or financial assistance by individual or corporate organisations extended to them as national cake meant to be enjoyed and squandered, but that such grants should be utilised to build a solid, endurable and sustainable investment.

    Giving tips on how to set up successful business, Olagunju said rather than seek capital before capacity, capacity should come first to forestall loss of resources.

  • Edo community’s youth hail Dangote

    Edo community’s youth hail Dangote

    An Edo State community’s group, Okpella Youth Forum (OYF), has congratulated the President of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, on the successful ground-breaking ceremony of N1 billion cement plant in the community.

    In a message by its National President, Dr Gerald Adewole, the forum praised Dangote for his rare business acumen, which it said had led to the rapid expansion of the Dangote conglomerate across Nigeria, Africa and beyond.

    The forum noted that the phenomenal growth of the Dangote Group had impacted the Nigerian economy, created thousands of jobs for youths, empowered local communities and stimulated socio-economic activities across the country.

  • Unemployment: BoI’s ‘YES’ project raises youth’s hope

    Unemployment: BoI’s ‘YES’ project raises youth’s hope

    As part of measures to tackle unemployment, the Bank of Industry (BoI) has unfolded a N10 billion Youth Entrepreneurship Support (YES) programme. It is expected to create 36,000 jobs yearly. TOBA AGBOOLA reports.

    Unemployment, arguably, is one of the most critical socio-economic problems  facing Nigeria. According to the latest report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), about 1,972,722 Nigerians have been unemployed since June last year. The Federal Government, however, appears determined to tackle the problem.

    Through the Bank of Industry (BOI), the government has launched the N10 billion Youth Entrepreneurship Support (YES) programme. The scheme is expected to produce at least 36,000 direct and indirect jobs annually, with each beneficiary getting between N5 million to N10 million loan at nine per cent interest rate with a tenure of five to 10 years.

    At the launch of the programme in Abuja, the Acting Managing Director of BOI, Mr. Waheed Olagunju, said the programme aimed at equipping youths to become self-employed by starting and managing their own businesses and eventually becoming employers of labour. While noting that Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are the bedrock of any economy, he said there is need to develop the capacity of the youths with a view to ultimately fund their business plans.

    Olagunju said while previous empowerment programmes for the youths concentrated more on training, the YES project will provide funds for the beneficiaries. According to him, it is a critical success factor in the establishment of small businesses. “The capacity building programmes also hardly take care of the entire training value chain. The YES scheme that is being launched today would therefore, provide an opportunity for BOI to address the worrisome phenomenon of lack of finance,” he said.

    Olagunju highlighted some of the bold steps taken by the Bank in recent times to address some of the developmental challenges facing the country. The most recent, he said, was the merit-based N2 billion financial inclusion scheme for youths known as the Graduate Entrepreneurship Fund (GEF). The GEF, launched by the Bank in October 2015 in partnership with the National Youth Corps Directorate, is the precursor to YES.

    “GEF is targeted at serving members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). The programme is an innovative approach aimed at tackling the social malaise of graduate unemployment. The strategy was to identify the innate talents of the young graduates as soon as they leave school, build their capacities for self-reliance and also empower them to establish their own businesses;  thereby creating jobs not just for themselves, but for other youths that they may employ. Indirect jobs would also be created as a result of ventures promoted under GEF,” the BoI boss explained.

    Explaining further, he said the programme entailed an online business ideas competition in which 3,100 serving members of the NYSC made their submissions out of which 1,000  top scorers emerged. The successful candidates, he said, underwent entrepreneurship capacity building programmes in seven locations in the six geopolitical zones of the country, including the special centre in Lagos, to facilitate access to finance for their business plans.

    The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr, Okechukwu Enelema, said government will continue to grasp with the sharp decline in revenue from crude oil, which has been the main stay of the economy. He, however, said the nation should not be unmindful of the opportunity the situation presents.

    “It is very important we look inwards in this period and look at ways of exploiting the entrepreneurial spirit and the zeal of  our people. The intense energy of our large youthful population is a strength that we need to exploit by re-orientating them towards positive engagement in entrepreneurship. The nation’s unemployment rate has assumed a worrisome level in view of its implication for national development and competitiveness,” the minister said.

    Speaking with The Nation, one of the beneficiaries of the first phase of the scheme, Mr. Vincent Chinedu, said with the introduction of the portal, it will be easy for anybody to apply unlike before when it was difficult. He said it was not easy when he initially started because of the stringent collateral. He, however, said BOI has relaxed the condition, adding that this will encourage and help others to apply for the loan.

    Chinedu said he graduated as a Chemical Engineer in 2012/2013 and instead of looking for job, he applied for the loan with his NYSC certificate. With the presentation of two guarantors, he said he was given the loan. Today, he is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Nedhills Industries. “We are into palm kernel oil production and I have five people working for me at the moment. I am planning to employ more people because we are expanding,” he said.

  • Remembering and empowering youth

    Let us think and act INTERGENERATIONALLY.

    Always. Planning always to include the youth. We shall digress this week from our planned discourse on nation and nationhood, to engage Professor Wole Soyinka’s positive and needed call for an economic conference of experts, consumers, as well as qualified and concerned citizens. Many have rightly pointed out that this was a necessary move that I also support if it will take our country out of our seeming economic and perhaps political quagmire. It is heartening that in this new political dispensation, voices of relevant and concerned people are noted and given a response. My contribution is to remind us to include the youth: invite their representatives and consult the youth widely as we also listen to them without condescension or bullying. We hope that in this new democracy of change, we shall avoid the culture of bullying our citizens as they are not subjects of their ruling class. The political class should always remember that they are servants of the citizens who have been put in place to do what is best for the citizenry as well as recognize that they are not a master class but a servant one if we are following the tenets of democracy that we claim to be practicing. This caveat applies also to the adult citizens, not only youth. No bullying of citizens.

    Whom do we consider the youth? I would think we mean young people of 40 years and under. It would not be a new event in our experience as Africans to include such ages in our social and public organizations of our society if we look back into our past and our indigenous traditions. Including youth would not be only an idea from the West or the United Nations for African societies always had a place for youth in many ways. Not only in war but in life-supporting human activities such as farming, building and clearing roads, helping to administer justice, organizing in social events and celebrations that help to define the community and provide sheer pleasure. They often had their own chieftaincies too conferred by and respected in the larger society. In my father’s town, they were called the Gbara, as I learned. My belief in the recognition of our youth caused me to be quite pleased when I noticed the involvement in many ways of the Egba youth in the celebration of the life of Lisabi, the founder of the Egba (the people of Abeokuta) people.

    We could make more of a practice of looking back into our indigenous past not only for carnivals but for constructive organizations that will help our present and our future, give us our identities and keep the youth busy. I have always been concerned with the social impact of our newly adopted ways of raising and educating children and youth that does not keep them occupied meaningfully with and usefully to the larger society between the ages of five and 18 for instance or give them leadership for instance in organizing the beautiful and highly creative Atilogwu Dance. Instead of engaging in socially organized and recognized social activities, they are left to wander around society trying to find their own amusements and running into trouble with crime and physically abusive activities. Lacking guidance or attention from adults and the larger society, they obsess with the imitation of foreign societies that they do not know or understand, the world of cell phones and television and new modes of crime as they suffer from sheer confusion and boredom.

    It was never so in the past and it is being suggested here that the energy and creativity of youth be harnessed in our new national dispensation. I have often wondered to myself if the rage of cults and cultism in the society do not derive from the neglect and boredom of youths. By neglect is meant the fact of not being educated culturally by adults who are confused between modernity and their own culture, who themselves mimic what they think is modernity as they pursue the new ideal of money by any means necessary and neglect the cultural raising and development of their offspring. Since the larger society does not guide them or innovate modern patterns of activities of their own, the young make up their own consisting of gruesome notions of what they think is African and traditional: initiation ceremonies of murder, mayhem and the abuse of women (the girls who are fought over and shared by them, dominated in a mixture of bad Hollywood and what they think is African culture as no parent or adult taught them or helped to find what is African. Perhaps such energies can be taken over by governance, absorbed into organizational and public structures and used to give youth a sense of usefulness and respect from adults. Perhaps it would help if the youth are given recognized positions of leadership in the modern dispensations in their villages, towns and governmental organizations.  I was at a conference in Senegal where students who were members of parliament came to represent their country, Mali.

    Such absorption of youth into social and governmental life, finding useful and relevant patterns from our traditional cultures can only happen if we still respect our various cultures and do not despise them as seems to be the condition now for many religious organizations teach youth and the whole country that everything African is demonic. This rage of internalized racism and self-despisal needs to be engaged and stopped in the new educational curricula and the development of children and citizenry that we are thinking of now and are also necessary. Self-respecting nations like Japan and others do take from their past and their own cultures as they love and respect them unlike us… They are reputed for instance also adapt those cultures to meet modern needs as is reported that Japanese social patterns of authority are adopted in their factory system and other businesses. The Japanese studied, mastered and dominated electronic technology without considering themselves therefore inferior to the Westerners from whom they learnt.

    We seem to think that worship, adoration and self-despisal must go with learning from a culture perhaps because we think culture is biological, but culture is not biological. Anything created by human beings anywhere is the heritage of all humanity as interculturality, learning from and borrowing are habits of all humanity. And that is why we must study our history, world history and the histories of other peoples to understand how achievements are made in those societies.  The British are reputed to have studied the Romans to build their own empire of Britannia as other peoples did before them. We often say we no longer know the African cultures; yes, maybe but we can read about them; study them for all sources in museums and libraries from all over the world. That is what was and is done by other peoples to learn their own cultures and know what to choose for modernity. The average Britisher or French person does not necessarily know his or her history but those who build nations and institutions read, study for the important work of nation building in which they are engaged. Our Nigerian political and ruling classes travel a great deal; they could find the time to visit places and study.

  • N5,000 stipend for poor Nigerians still stands, says Presidency 

    The Presidency on Monday night insisted that the N5,000 stipend promised for the vulnerable and poor Nigerians still stands.

    President Muhammadu Buhari was claimed to have gone back on the promise while speaking to the Nigerian community in Saudi Arabia last week.

    But the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, while speaking to State House correspondents said that the 2016 Budget which has been submitted to the National Assembly has made an allocation of half a trillion naira for such social investment.

    He also pointed out that President Muhammadu Buhari never promised to pay unemployed graduates N5,000.

    He said: “The budget for 2016 which has been submitted to the National Assembly has made an allocation of half a trillion naira, the first time in the history of this country’s budget where you have that huge chunk of money allocated for social investment.

    “In that 500 billion naira which is half a trillion naira, close to about 20 per cent of the entire budget, there are six social safety net programmes. And one of them is the conditional cash transfer where government is going to pay N5,000 monthly to the vulnerable and extremely poor Nigerians. That promise stands.

    “The President never promised to pay unemployed graduates N5,000; the President never made that promise and the government never made that claim that it will pay N5,000 to unemployed graduates.

    “The programme for unemployed graduates is the direct creation of half a million teaching jobs so that they will be trained; 500,000 unemployed graduates will be trained to teach and they will be deployed to teach, while they are looking for their career paths or jobs. That still stands.

    “In addition to that, there is also a scheme to train 370,000 non-graduate youth for skill acquisition and vocational training. During the time of that training, they will also be paid. So the President did not say that he would be giving unemployed graduates N5,000.” He said.

    Continuing, Laolu said: “The N5,000 monthly which is already in the budget is for the vulnerable Nigerians and the extremely poor, and this year by the grace of God, once the budget is okay , one million extremely poor Nigerians will receive N5,000 monthly.”

  • How agric can boost youth employment

    How agric can boost youth employment

    How can youth unemployment be addressed? It is by massive investments in agriculture, say experts. DANIEL ESSIET reports.

    The youth population is the largest in history. An estimated 87 per cent of the world’s young people live in developing countries and in rural areas.

    However, opportunities for youths in these areas are limited or non-existent, leaving them marginalised economically. In the rural areas, most youths are without work. The rate is increasing  daily.

    Following the impact of high rates of poverty, young people are migrating from rural areas in search of opportunities in towns, where they face an uncertain future. But in places, such as Ogbomosho in Oyo State, however, a lot of youths have already become agro entrepreneurs out of necessity.

    Yet, as they try to create their opportunities, they face problems. Agric real estate expert, Debo Thomas, said they have few opportunities to access affordable financial services, adding that without funds, they would continue to have the odds stacked against them. To help solve these barriers, he urged the government to take steps to develop economic and employment opportunities.

    According to him, the government needs to support local governments and private organisations with empowerment programmes aimed at helping rural young people create employment opportunities through agriculture.

    With the right business advisory services specifically tailored for their needs, he maintained that young people will be able to create their own employment opportunities and improve agricultural productivity in their areas.

    Without such opportunities, experts say young people will continue to migrate from rural areas and from agriculture, which would have major implication for food security and political stability. The Managing Director, Niji Group, Kolawole Adeniji sees young people living in rural areas with the potential of becoming farmers and producers of tomorrow. Young rural people, he observed, represented a significant portion of the agricultural workforce, and they can play a major role in the development of rural areas. But a range of access gaps, such as to land, financial services, technology, and markets is limiting their potential.

    For him, the ability of rural youth to engage in productive agricultural and non-agricultural activities has great social and economic benefits for the economy.

    According to him, a lot of unemployed youths  can be empowered to depend on agriculture for their livelihoods if the government provides the enabling environment for establishment of various  micro agric processing  opportunities, adding that such investments would help to create the conditions them  to live in such areas with dignity.

    To this end, he said investing in agriculture could help increase social protection for youths in the rural areas.

    He said boosting investments in agriculture for youths in the rural areas requires innovative financing instruments.

    He called on the government to support young people in overcoming barriers to agricultural production, especially, facilitating access to productive land.

    To support rural youth in finding employment, he said his organisation is creating a farm settlement to boost agroentre-preneurship and to help increase the employment and self-employment opportunities of young people.

    He said his organisation is facilitating an on-farm apprenticeship system where young people will  receive practical, on-the-job agro business training, learn skills in  areas, including agricultural tool-making, farming and gain experience  in managing small-scale enterprises.

    Project Coordinator, Techno-serve, an international organisation, Olorunfemi Toyin, said rural youths are critical in the society, even in agriculture.

    Toyin, who has coordinated several projects on the agricultural value chain and coordinating Technoserve’s Promoting cashew farmer livelihood programme in Nigeria, said it is high time the government  strengthened the programme on youths in agriculture.

    To him, rural youths makes up a  proportion of the population in the rural areas are disproportionately affected by poverty, food insecurity and poverty.

    According to him, there is a broad agreement about the challenges faced by youths and the importance of having multi-stakeholder partnerships to empower them in agriculture and supply chains.

    To achieve rural transformation, he stressed the need to create opportunities for them to participate in productive and lucrative agro business ventures.

    He called for the creation of agro-hubs in rural places where youths can raise nurseries, provide agro-services, such as pesticides applications, grafting, among others, as a source of income.

    According to him, Technoserve has made enormous effort to empower youths and women by provide them with resources, capacity building and access to information, to participate in agriculture.

    He noted that by supporting youths in agriculture to access the right tools and technology, the government could can make significant gains toward ending extreme poverty and hunger.

    He said: “I think the need for government to go the way of agriculture is now, especially considering two current happenings; thee less value on oil and depletion rate or incidences rocking the Nigeria oil and gas sector, and the fact that very few youths are seen and are rare to come-by farming.”

    He urged the government to promote rural youth involvement in agriculture through creating awareness on employment opportunities.

  • Nigerian youth and quest for change

    SIR: In Nigeria, there has been a change of government, but I submit quite sadly that there seems to be no change in the approach of government to youth affairs and welfare.   I have been in critical look out for the youth agenda of this government.  My constant watch has for the time being failed me yet I choose to live in the belief that the government means and would act well as it concerns the youth.  I submit that to give bite to the policy and governance bark of the current government, young Nigerians who have leveraged on current advances in Information, Communication Technology and education must be engaged to bring modern inputs to country’s advances. The old breed plus the young breed would ensure we don’t breed greed. Nigeria needs to make bold, decisive and critical steps geared towards handing the reins of leadership to the young and informed.  The solution to our years of long plagues lay in the hands of the energetic, revered, committed, consistent and creative class.

    There appears to be a promotion of entertainment and raw fun over intellectualism and innovation.  It is no longer fascinating to be brilliant and hard work is serially unrewarded. The federal and state governments are called upon to reverse this trend by rewarding hardworking, educated young Nigerians with job placements, funds, grants, and offer loud, attractive benefits to the youths who contribute to the change agenda and overall development of the country.

    The multinationals, telecom operators and country-based companies can do an instructive bit by making brilliant, innovative and exemplary young Nigerians their Brand Ambassadors thereby ensuring the creation of a new national order which would see to the setting of our country’s priorities in a right and sustainable way.

    The moment the youths as a collective observe, note, see and know that national premium is being placed on merit,   I posit that their focus would be geared towards positive directions and this would ensure a corresponding reduction in crime rates and other societal vices.

    Nigeria is blessed and can have young professors, young leaders and bright influencers pilot its affairs.   I send words to the Minister of Youths Development to ensure reform goes beyond the NYSC scheme by setting up engaging platforms for youth discussions and insightful programmes which would gain youthful attention.

    A sterling flag of commendation is raised in honour of the Nigerian youth who despite the near and total lack of institutional support have excelled in the academia and entertainment industry.  They have attained levels of excellence suo moto and this leaves other young Africans green with envy.

     

    I believe that the change agenda can leave the current form of verbal productions and become our reality. Nigeria is for all of us but it is the youths and those to come after them to inherit and grow the country.  Let’s get them involved.

     

    • Nwokolo Geoffrey Netochukwu,

    University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

  • My plan is to institute youth based government -Paseda

    My plan is to institute youth based government -Paseda

    Prince Rotimi Paseda, the governorship candidate of the Unity Party of Nigeria in Ogun State, has said his vision in politics is to institute a youth based government. He made the statement in a brief chat where he also spoke of his experiences during the last general elections.

    As he puts it: “My plan is to institute a youth based government. I made my first million pounds in England as a very young man as a result of pure friendship when I was in Cardiff University on Ogun State scholarship. My parents couldn’t have been able to afford the trip to England if not for the benefit I got from Ogun State. Incidentally, most of our leaders at the helms of affairs benefited from all these government largesse and they are now shutting the doors against the youth of today, which is what we see in every state we turn to. I had a friend in the university that was wayward and not ready to read and get serious in life, and his father was a multi-millionaire then and the father noticed the affinity between his son and me and started using me to correct his son. At a time, I was practically living in their house as one of his children, with full benefit of being his kid. He made sure his son and I hung out every time except during lectures and on a particular day he went to an auction because he was an estate auctioneer and bought us one house each for speculation at the price of a million pound and taught us the art of speculation and ever since then I have not looked back in business and every time I go back to him for advise here and there and to the glory of God his son today is a better man in business and personal life. Now tell me why I shouldn’t give back to the society, when the society made me?”

    On his experiences during the last elections, where he contested for the plum office of governor, Paseda said, “it is not strength or might that will sustain a man but the grace of God. So, when people asked who I am and my antecedence in politics, I tell them if a man will get there, he will with God on his side. So, spending money on election and different people seeing me as someone to extort is all a game to me as I am enjoying myself. For your information, I consider that episode as politics 101 for me and I have graduated a better person; the whole experience have not affected me a bit and have not changed me because I believe as an adult we all have free will to decide what to do and what not to do; so if you decide to do wrong, it’s your decision and if you decide otherwise, so, I have come out of the whole election a stronger person and with a stronger will to do more and go further.”

    The governorship candidate also commented on the attitude of Nigerian leaders, advising them to treat other Nigerians with greater civility while in office. “It is time we let our leaders know they are there to serve us and not the other way round. The other day we all saw the picture of our ex-president in London emerging from an Apple shop alone. That wouldn’t have been possible some 10 months ago, so nothing is permanent in life. So, treat others as you would want to be treated,” he told serving leaders.

  • FCMB sponsors youth entreneurship scheme

    FCMB sponsors youth entreneurship scheme

    First City Monument Bank (FCMB) Limited is for the second consecutive year sponsoring the 2015  edition of the fashion-to-entrepreneurship reality competition tagged, ‘’Dare2Dream (D2D)’’.

    The contest, which is organised by Kinabuti, a Nigerian-based Italian fashion label, and Pulse.ng, provides an opportunity for young and aspiring women across the country, especially students, who desire to take up career in modelling and fashion, to showcase their skills and live their dreams.

    The initiative is also designed to discover, empower and encourage them to realise their aspirations through the sponsorship platform provided by the FCMB brand, while raising the profile of the Nigerian fashion industry.

    This year’s competition will kick off on November today with a campus activation that would involve a selection programme of contestants who are students in three universities.