A group of financial experts have advised the Federal Government to empower youths to enable them to discover their full economic potential.
They told newsmen in separate interviews in Lagos that such a step would reduce the level of poverty in the country.
The experts expressed the opinion that government needed to move fast in providing facilities to encourage the acquisition of entrepreneurial skills.
The immediate past President, Finance Houses Association of Nigeria, Mr Eddie Osarenkhoe, said that the youth must be re-orientated in line with current trends in the country.
Osarenkhoe urged the Federal Government to provide capacity building programmes for them, adding that there should be training centres where youths could acquire specialised skills.
He said that appropriate infrastructure should be put in place to support government policies so that people would have the right environment to do business.
“Insecurity poses a major challenge to business environments, so government needs to provide adequate security for the safety of lives and property in the interest of economic activities.”
Mr Akin Ojo, the Deputy Manager, Federal Inland Revenues Services (FIRS), recalled that youth empowerment had been a major challenge facing the nation.
Ojo said “crimes such as kidnapping, armed robbery and terrorism are due to idleness of a good number of youths”.
The manager observed that poor implementation of government policies and corruption had impacted negatively on the economy.
He appealed to the government to ensure effective and efficient implementation of its policies to enable the people to create jobs for themselves.
A Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics of the University of Lagos, Dr Kazeem Bello, told said that government needed to create an enabling environment for small and medium enterprise to thrive.
“There is the need to fast track an enabling environment so that industries can have a meaningful development that will lead to efficient utilisation of human resources,” Bello said.