Abuja – Gov. Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna state would to host an entrepreneurship summit for unemployed and self employed youths in the north to promote development of natural resources found within the region, an official has said.
Mr Lugard Okonobo, the Director Planning and Strategy, Northern Youths Business Roundtable, an NGO, said this during a meeting on Monday in Abuja.
“The Kaduna State Government through the office of the special assistant to his Excellency, Governor el-Rufai, has accepted to host the Northern Youth Entrepreneurship Summit which will come up last week of October and first week of November. .
“We believe that the outcome of the summit will be wherein we will have youths who will be willing to volunteer their service and time to work with the state government may be for six months or one year so that they will form members of the northern youth economic council.
“The meeting hopes to build the capacity of youths to be entrepreneurs; youths who are in business, youths proposing to go into business.
“Ministries that have to do with the business angle in government like the ministry of finance, agriculture, solid minerals, women affairs that also has to promote gender entrepreneurship they all need to be there,’’ he said.
Okonobo said that those ministries were attending the summit in order to see the enthusiasm of youths and help find out ways to eradicate youth restiveness with focus on development of human and natural resources within the region.
He called on the northern governors’ forum to approve the proposed youth economic council which would be a giant stride towards engaging the large number of youths from the region who were mostly unemployed.
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Mr Ahmed Suleiman, the Project Director in the organisation, observed that some of the youths in the region were out of school which impacted negatively on development in the region in particular and the nation.
“We are working to see how those who are privileged from the north especially the youths can contribute to help other jobless youths by ensuring that the resource base in the northern region is properly utilised, harnessed and converted to a productive platform.
“We are also trying to see how the northern governors’ forum can work with us in this venture. We need their assistance to holistically look at approving the northern youth economic council.
“Based on our research we have discovered that there are many research centres in the north that are into production of various items using natural materials and products but this area is not being fully explored,” he added.
Suleiman charged governors within the region to make more efforts towards youth employment and entrepreneurship in order to uplift the status of the north which currently had the largest population of youths in the country.
“If every state in the region can create at least 10,000 jobs quarterly or annually the number of unemployed youths will not be as it is currently.
“The governor who has made some effort in this area is the Kaduna state governor who has started initiating the farming system and we want to believe that if more youths are involved in self employment it will help in the overall development of the region and the country as a whole.
“Some other states are also trying in terms of youth engagement but there is need to make more efforts to take the youths off the streets as their restiveness hinders the region’s development,” he said.
The project coordinator said that the organisation was working with government MDAs, the private sector and other NGOs with a view to finding ways to eradicate youth unemployment in the country.
He said that there was need for individuals, organisations and other bodies to support the Federal Government towards reducing unemployment as it was not the sole responsibility of government to do so.
Suleiman said such efforts would enable rapid and sustainable development of all regions which would give way to peace and prosperity in the country. (NAN)
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