Youth empowerment, panacea to stemming restiveness in Nigeria

A survey has it that Nigerian youths constitute more than 50 percent of the nation’s population, and over 70 percent of this population are unemployed. Going by this survey, any scheme geared towards empowering the youths cannot be overemphasised.

At the recent distribution of poverty reduction items by Ahmed Makarfi, chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, Mukhtar Ramallan Yero, the Kaduna State governor, said “the only panacea to peace and unity in the country is for leaders in the country to pursue programmes that would empower the youths and eradicate poverty.”

At the gathering, a stakeholder said that the beneficiaries have no reason not to succeed because they have been given a better platform to succeed in life. Therefore, they have to reciprocate the good gesture of the donor by shying away from any act of violent.

It is a common knowledge with proven cases that expansion and growth of the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) sector of any economy contributes to greater utilisation of local raw materials, encouragement of rural development, mobilisation of local savings, generation of employment and linkages with bigger industries. This is so, as the SMEs form the bedrock of industrialisation and technological advancement.

In line with addressing this social malady, Kingsley Kuku, special adviser to the president on Niger Delta, and chairman, Presidential Amnesty Programme, recently welcomed stakeholders, the media and 300 pilot scheme beneficiaries of the post-training empowerment programme/start-up business showcase in Lagos. Among the 300 beneficiaries, some specialised in the sale of building materials, electronics, fish farming, welding, and management of supermarket.

The showcase was the first in the series of empowerment programmes aimed basically at assisting trained ex-militants and equipping them to set up and grow small businesses that will not only make them the new generation of entrepreneurs, but lay a solid foundation to break the nature of poverty, contribute to economic growth and move Nigeria closer to realising the number one goal of the Millennium Development Goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.

A cursory look at the amnesty programme shows the imperative of empowering youths in the country will snowball into a situation where they would have less time to be involved in social vices. This can be deduced from the way the empowered youth made promises to be of good behaviour and never to go back to the creeks.

So far, the following successes have been recorded by the programme: Over 13,000 delegates have been deployed to local and foreign training centres for various skills acquisition programme and formal education and over 2,500 delegates have been placed in higher institution of learning in local and foreign colleges and universities, studying various courses

Over 4,608 are currently undergoing various forms of skills acquisition training in Nigeria and other parts of the world, ranging from marine, heavy duty operations, welding, diving, agriculture, boat building, oil and gas technicians, entrepreneurship, automobile technology, aviation, etc.

Also, over 9,192 of them have graduated in the skills acquisition programmes from various fields ranging from agriculture (239), automobile (207), welding and fabrication (2,204), entrepreneurship (2,798), carpentry and plumbing (298), oil drilling and marine related courses (916), electrical installation (89), ICT (273), crane and heavy duty (1030), boat building (299), pipefitting (250), entertainment (60) and others, (618) among them, these 300 beneficiaries for the pilot scheme.

In addition, over 690 women delegates have been placed and are currently in specialised skills centres some of them as we’re aware have graduated and talks are on to also set them up in the nearest future in the trained area of fashion designing, hotel and catering, cosmetology and hair dressing.

Currently, over 174 delegates have been offered direct employment in various governmental and private establishments within and outside Nigeria.

By celebrating the persons for whom the gathering was made, Kuku said “we are looking forward to assisting you in collaborating with our service providers, to hold your hand during the coaching and mentoring phase of your businesses, to assist surmount the teething stage of any business – big or small.

“That way, you also will help in contributing to the President Goodluck Jonathan Transformation Agenda, since you will not only be gainfully and productively engaged but will also be employers of labour that will be contributing in no small measure to the development and sustainable growth of the nation as well as deepening the peace in the Niger Delta.”

The beneficiaries are therefore cautioned to commit themselves to the agreements and commitments they have entered into by making sure the equipment and wares they were given were used to grow their businesses.

“Please, do not sell the equipment and do not eat up all the monies you will make from engaging in your chosen businesses. Make a difference in your life and your community; grow your businesses so that when history will be written about the amnesty programme you will be on the side of the success story,” Lawrence Pepple, technical assistance on re-integration, Amnesty Office, admonished them.

Given the successes recorded in the amnesty programme, various stakeholders have unknowingly put Nigeria as a front-line contender for a space in the Guinness Book of Records as the first nation in Africa to have initiated, funded and managed a programme without bloodshed and external support through all the phases of this hydra-headed post conflict reconstruction mechanism that even its initiator, the UN Department of Peace Keeping Operations acknowledged as “still work in progress.”

With the empowerment of these youths and their pledge to grow their various businesses, investors are encouraged to take advantage of the peace in the Niger Delta region and come in for partnership, believing in the capacity of these reintegrated young men and women, patronise them and help to deepen the peace in the country.