Catholic Women Protest Youth Unemployment

Members of the Catholic Women Organisation (CWO), Nsukka Catholic Diocese numbering about 600 on Thursday staged a protest  against the high level of youth unemployment in the country.

The protest march which started in St Theresa Cathedral, terminated at the Nsukka Local Government Council Secretariat, where they handed a protest letter to the Chairman, Mr Tony Ugwu, for onward transmission to Gov. Sullivan Chime.

In a remark, Prof Rose Onah, the CWO President, noted that the unemployment situation had lured many youths into armed robbery, kidnap, and other forms of vices that had become the order of the day.

“It is an abomination that parents, after labouring to train their children up to university level, continue to feed and clothe them because of unemployment.

“It is unemployment that leads some youths to commit crime, since an idle mind is a devil’s workshop,” she said.

Onah urged the three tier of government to take urgent steps toward finding a lasting solution to the problem, stressing that youths, as future leaders, should be empowered.

“Government, as matter of necessity, should establish and fund cooperative societies in order to engage our teeming unemployed youths with something,” she said.

Receiving the women, Ugwu commended them for conducting themselves in an orderly manner and pledged to deliver their message to Chime.

“We are all concerned about the unemployment rate in the country, he said.

He described Chime’s administration as youth friendly as it had empowered many youths since its assumption of office.

He said that both the state and local government would continue to do their best to reduce the unemployment level to the barest minimum.

Some of the placards had inscriptions such as:”Government please provide jobs for our children”, “Unemployment destroys youths”, “With employment, the level of crime in the country will reduce”.