FG Recommits To N’Delta Youth Empowerement

Son of Late Alamieyeseigha, Victor, with Late Alamieyeseigha’s widow, Marget (middle) and wife of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Dame Patience Jonathan, during a condolence visit to the Alamieyeseigha’s family home in Port Harcourt on Tuesday.

The Director, Community and Youth Empowerment, Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, Mrs Godiya Yohanna, has said  that the ministry was committed to empowering youth in the region.
Yohanna reaffirmed the Ministry’s commitment in an interview with newsmen in Abuja.
She explained that the training of youth from the Niger Delta was a continuous exercise designed to create employment for the non-militant ones from the region.
According to her, no fewer than 160,000 youth have applied for the skill acquisition programme in 2015.
She said that the programme would encourage the youth to be employers of labour, adding that the Ministry was prepared to enable more youth from the region to acquire skills locally and internationally.
‘’Our mandate is to work towards useful self-employment, so that beneficiaries would not have to look for employment afterwards.
‘’The idea is for them to be self-employed in order to promote the economy of the region.’’
The director said that the Ministry’s skills acquisition centres in the nine oil producing states of the Niger Delta were nearing completion.
She said that the skill acquisition centre in Otuoke, Bayelsa, had been ceded to the Federal University in the town, adding that a new one would soon be established there.
“The centres in Akwa Ibom and Delta states will also concentrate on oil and gas, ICTs and maritime studies.
“The centres in Abia and Imo states will train youths in commerce; the one in Cross River is on entertainment and tourism while the Ondo skill acquisition centre will focus on agriculture,” she said.
The director, however, complained that inadequate budget for the programme was a major challenge as the Ministry still owed some companies that participated in training of non-militant youth.