First Lady of Opobo Kingdom, Her Majesty, Queen Prudence Daneson Jaja, has called on Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and the philanthropists to support Federal Government’s efforts at addressing youth unemployment in Nigeria, which discourages social ills that paint the country black.
Jaja made the appeal recently while speaking at the 2019 Centralized Convention of a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), the Opobo Women Welfare Association (OWWA), with the theme: “In time like this” held at Opobo Town, where about 150 youths were financially empowered, in addition to other gift items. She said that the beneficiaries who were youths from the eleven wards of Opobo/Nkoro Local Government Area of Rivers State were enrolled for training in various vocations having realized that government alone could not create employment for millions of Nigerian youths she enjoined them to make good use of the empowerment given to them.
According to her, “collective efforts of government, well-meaning individuals, philanthropists, NGOs and other stakeholders are required to address the alarming rate of unemployment in the country”.
Queen Jaja, said that with the Federal and State Government’s several empowerment programs, more opportunities had been created for the youths who are willing and ready to become self-employed, rather than taking to crime and other unholy means of survival, decrying the practice of using youths by some wealthy individuals to amass wealth, build houses, ride exotic cars and engage in other unproductive acts, which she regards as misplaced priorities.
In her words, “touching the lives of the less privileged, creating jobs through empowerment in various forms and sponsoring unemployed youths to make them self-reliant are legacies for which they will be forever remembered”.
She pleaded with well-meaning Nigerians to rise up and pay attention to the worrisome unemployment challenges nationwide, appealing for collaboration by all stakeholders to mitigate the unemployment rate among youths.
Also speaking at the event, President of the group, Ama-Opu-Orubo Felicia Stephen Pepple, appealed to government at all levels to include youths and the less privileged in the society in their policies and programs in order to quell the upheavals beclouding the nation, adding, “this is the time the attention of our leaders at all levels are needed to address the escalating feud in Nigeria which is borne out of unemployment of the youths, as well as their empowerment. Greed and avarice are the twin relations of mal-administration and fracas hovering in and around Nigeria of recent”.
She further admonished politicians to shun the habit of using Nigerian youths during elections to cause mayhem in the country and later abandon them, noting that, “a hungry man is an angry man.” The youths she insists, should be encouraged by way of empowering them with scholarships, grants and other necessities of life for them to turn away from social ills, such as; rape, armed robbery, kidnapping, killings, drug abuse and drunkenness among others.
Pepple used the opportunity to advise the youths especially the recipients of the empowerment largesse to utilize them for their good, instead of using it for other purposes irrelevant to the society.
Meanwhile, Ama-Opu-Orubo Felicia Pepple, has asked the National Assembly to expedite action in implementing the violence against person prohibition bill while calling for twenty years jail term for anyone guilty of raping a girl less than fourteen years.
The group leader also called on the Federal Government to quickly give legal backing to the law so that offenders would not go unpunished, adding that the problem of Nigeria is not in law making but implementation.
She, however, said that the current laws which seek to protect the right of citizens in cases of this nature do not go far enough, adding that the punishments provided by existing laws was inadequate in light of present realities.
Pepple, therefore, implored the Federal Government to show concern on the plight of sexually abused people in the country. She stressed that it is imperative to establish a commission to handle the issue of rape properly and suggested that officers that would man the commission should be experts from relevant disciplines.

By: Bethel Toby & Patience Mecha