Youth Empowerment

Text of An Address By His Excellency, The Executive Governor Of Nasarawa State Alh. (Dr) Abdullahi Adamu (Sarkin Yakin Keffi) On The Occasion Of A Training Workshop On Poultry Production, Fisheries And Vegetable Production For Youth Empowerment Scheme Held In Lafia 8^TH September, 2004

It is with a deep sense of fulfillment and gratitude to God that I address you today on this occasion of the opening ceremony of the three – day workshop on Youth Empowerment.

We feel fulfilled because what is about to start this morning is the realization of a dream, the coming to fruition of years of conscious planning and efforts to change things for the better and transform the lives of our young men and women.

This workshop has been organized not just to train our youths but also to propel them towards economic independence. The participants in this workshop, who are drawn from all the local governments and development areas of the state, will be trained in one of three areas of agricultural activity that will be taught here, namely Poultry production, Vegetable production and Fish production. The choice of which activity they will be involved with has been left to them.

At the last count, I am informed that 252 young men and women will be participating in this training workshop. And after their training, these young men and women will be granted soft loans and empowered to commence small scale businesses which will put to best use the training they would have received here. We wish to reiterate that this workshop is part of our continuing efforts at youth empowerment in which we intend to create alternative employment opportunities for our young people.

From the inception of our administration in 1999, the development of agriculture, as part of an overall rural transformation programme, has been at the very top of our policy thrust. And one of the cardinal aspects of the programme, to which the administration has been paying special attention, is the empowerment of the youths - socially, economically and politically. This is based on our understanding that youths, constituting about 60% of our population, are a critical sector of the population. As such, we believe that they can play a crucial role in our agricultural development and rural transformation programmes. The youths are not just leaders of tomorrow, as is always said, they are the most energetic and productive sector of the population who need to be motivated and encouraged to put their energies, resourcefulness and fertile imaginations to the best use for the benefit of the whole society and our country.

It is in realization of these facts that we are constantly making huge investments in the development of our youths, and have fashioned definite policies and programmes for their benefit.

Our goal is to significantly improve the productive capacity of our youths, empower them, and create the atmosphere and environment within which they can realize their full potentials, so that our dream of becoming Nigeria’s biggest food basket will be fulfilled.

This is one reason why this workshop is very important. It provides rare opportunity for our youths to acquire new skills and techniques in their chosen vocations which they can put to use to significantly increase their outputs and incomes, improve their own lives and, by so doing, help to raise the living standard of our people.

In our determined efforts to ensure that the youths being trained today do not relapse into unemployment, we have set aside the sum of N53.0 million to be given out as soft loans to them as part of our micro credit scheme. We must emphasize that these loans are not gifts. They are to be repaid. The repayment terms will however be made reasonable so as not to exert too much pressure on the beneficiaries.

I call on the youths privileged to be participants in this workshop to take everything that will be taught here very seriously, and to make use of it hereafter. I call on you also to do your best to impart the skills and techniques you will acquire here to others not fortunate to be here, so that you can be agents of change.

Incase some of you may not be able to run the businesses alone, we would encourage you to form cooperatives amongst yourselves so that you may access yourselves to more capital and skills. Our administration has always encouraged the formation of cooperatives as a catalyst for growth and development. We would be willing, through our Small Business Information Center (BIC) in Lafia, to further train you in project proposal writing and access to the financial market for additional loans to expand your businesses. We wish to state here that the BIC is the main agency of government for the development of small and medium sized enterprises. The center was set up within the context of rapidly developing the business environment in the state and the objective of availing our young men and women the requisite information and expertise to set up small businesses. We therefore call on our youth to avail themselves of the facilities in the center to develop business ideas and plans.

It is pertinent at this point to call on the private sector, especially the banking sub sector to support our small and medium scale industrial programmes. We are aware of the difficulties faced by our young men and women in accessing themselves to financial services from the banks. We expect the banks to play a more dynamic and significant role in supporting government programmes in this area. One area they could do this will be a reduction in the current high interest rates. The interest rates charged on capital borrowed from the banks do not encourage the development of SME’s and is therefore likely to discourage government policies in this regard. The banks must therefore develop policies and structures for assisting our young men establish small businesses.

Aside from this training workshop which will be a continuous government policy, we have established technical schools and vocational training centers for training our youths. On completion, the students of these institutions will be empowered to set up SME’s with the skills they have acquired. Government will, as always, assist them with micro-credit facilities to get them to a good head start in their chosen vocations.

In the past few days, government decided to distribute tri-cycles (popularly called Keke Napep) and cars for town-service taxis to some youth associations in the transport sector as a way of empowering our youths in the transport business in our cities and towns. The distribution of these vehicles to our youths will commence very soon, but it must be clearly stated that only registered associations will benefit from the programme. Individuals who are interested in benefiting from the scheme are advised to join these associations through which the programme will be implemented.

On this note, ladies and gentlemen, I have the honour and privilege to now declare this workshop open.

Thank you and may God continue to bless and reward all our efforts.