The Chairman Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, has said the country can only overcome its rising insecurity level through a well-designed training and empowerment policy for jobless youths.
Bamidele, a representative of Ekiti Central Senatorial District at the senate said the incessant cases of banditry, robbery, kidnapping and killings being perpetrated by the youth would be halted if leaders could place a priority on the empowerment of youths through vocational and entrepreneurial training.
The APC chieftain spoke in Ado Ekiti on Wednesday, while rounding off a three-day vocational and entrepreneurial training for 1,000 unemployed youths in his senatorial district.
Bamidele explained that the programme done in partnership with Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria(SMEDAN), would open the vista of opportunities for his constituents in the entrepreneurial world to combat crime and the rising poverty.
The federal lawmaker said the training, which centres around business, tailoring and baking, would imbue the participants with the right skills, business acumen and ingenuity to thrive in the management of small scale businesses.
Addressing the participants, Bamidele, represented by his Senior Legislative Aide, Mr. Bunmi Oguntuase, said “80 percent of the crimes happening in Nigeria was as a result of joblessness among youths, demanding that the government must place priority in resolving this.
“The federal government is grappling with the issues of banditry in the Northwest, Boko Haram insurgency in the North East and kidnapping in the southwest. All these are creating restiveness and destabilising the economy because no investor will come to any environment that looks insecure.
“But with massive youth training and empowerment, some of these crises will automatically be resolved without resorting to spending billions on amnesty programmes and other resolution mechanisms”.
Bemoaning the high level of joblessness in the state, Bamidele said: “I have designed five empowerment programmes for my constituents because it is one of the key projects I have for them. In Ekiti, there are no viable factories and companies, what we are known for is Okada riding and we have to change the narratives.
“This capacity building will take about 70 percent off the streets of Ekiti because the APC led government of Ekiti is not also toying with its youth policy”.
The Chairman of the Ekiti West Local Government, Hon Kareem Agunbiade, charged the participants to be circumspect of the evidence-based fact that white-collar jobs are no longer fashionable and easy to seek in the country.
The LG boss said with the frightening and disturbing height of unemployment in the country, the idea of exposing people to business opportunities has become expedient and stands out as the best way to rescue them out of the current vicious poverty level.
In his lecture entitled:’ Be Your Own Boss’, a resource person, Mr. Julius Akaigbe, said business remains the best strategy for people to rule the world, not only by amassing wealth or attain financial self-sustainability but to gain fame and global reckoning.
