Rivers Youth: Towards Self Sufficiency

Rivers State Governor, Rt Hon Chibuike Amaechi, last Tuesday, urged 115  beneficiaries of youth empowerment scheme to maximize the opportunity offered by the training to be responsible citizens of the state.

Represented by his deputy, Engr Tele Ikuru, the state chief executive gave the charge during the presentation of certificates and starter packs to the granduands through the Ministry of Youth Development. The programme was indeed a fulfillment of the state government’s plan of action for its teeming youth in 2012.

Having placed the youth on a higher pedestal in 2011, the Ministry of Youth Development successfully coordinated various robust programmes such as: youth Holiday camping, youth Youwin Scheme, Emerging Leaders Conference, Global Peace Convention, Capacity Building Workshop, International Youth Celebration and Abuja Youth Parliament, among others. To sustain this trend, the ministry mapped out more pragmatic programmes for the youth in the years ahead.

In challenging the youth to aspire for true greatness, Governor Amaechi was not unmindful of some sharp practices that could derail the modest achievements thus far made and directed the Ministry to embark on routine supervision of the activities of the latest beneficiaries with a view to sanctioning offenders. By so doing, the Governor pre-empted some beneficiaries who like others in the past quickly disposed of their starter packs for immediate ephemeral gains, only to continue with the long circle of poverty thereafter.

Amaechi’s directive is therefore imperative like the Biblical expression that the man who can be trusted in little things can be trusted in great things and vice versa.

The Tide shares this view, for the singular fact that over the years the state government, private organisations and multinational oil firms had offered similar means of livelihood to the youth some of who simply blew the opportunity and channelled their acquired skills negatively in the society.

We therefore commend genuine efforts by the state government to tap the potentials of the willing young men and women with the aim of developing, empowering and integrating them into the mainstream production segment of the state.

It is sad that out of an estimated 4.5 million youth in the state, not a handful can boast of impacting on the state economy. In fact, most vital services required of core craftsmen and artisans, are provided by strangers while many Rivers youth remain aloof, not given to the economic intricacies of these trades and therefore stay unemployed. Not even the efforts of successive state governments to create the desired awareness on economic value and impact on such lucrative businesses in the state yielded any fruit. Instead that informal sector permanently remains outside the control of Rivers people. Same way the road-side mechanics, welders and masons are mainly people from other states.

There is no gainsaying that rural-urban migration is a basic fact and that informs why these people from other states compete to establish themselves in cities like Port Harcourt. Surprisingly, while we drift to the town many of them migrate to our villages and occupy every available space as we wallow in utter inertia.

We therefore advise the Rivers youth to embrace the state government’s empowerment initiatives to acquire necessary skills and be self-reliant. They need also key in to government policy of education for all as a basic ingredient of their existence.

That away, they would not give room to such vices like militancy as an option or consider being used as tools by rogue politicians or even enlist in apprenticeship to local criminals in view of its easy benefits. These are indeed deadly baits which rewards are never enduring.