By Umar Mohammad Gombe
Youth empowerment, entrepreneurship and creating business incubation hubs and skills acquisition centers for Nigerian teeming youth have been identified as keys to igniting social change and spurring economic development in Nigeria.
This has been discussed during a one-day round table discussion on Renewed Hope manifesto dubbed Race to 2023: Consolidating grounds through the Sights & Sounds of the Renewed Hope as adopted by the All Progressives Congress (APC) held in Abuja yesterday.
Most of the panelists speak on how people need to understand the realities in practice Of some critical components of the renewed hope manifesto of Asiwaju, as the provision for youth empowerment and entrepreneurship and to make and encourage commercial banks to make the process of obtaining loans/capital easy while giving priority to the youth who have a young mind with right and marketable ideas.
“Another premise of the renewed hope is also creating business incubation hubs and skills acquisition centers. There is no way we are going forward if our youth don’t have the skills to make them employable or to make them self-employed. Skills are the way to go, it is not about the paper qualification.
“Yes it is good to go to school and have degrees but can your degrees solve the problems in society? So we are trying to see that we want to have youth that is employable who can look at the problems we are having in society and use their knowledge and skills to solve those problems. We don’t have to wait for others to come from outside and solve our problems or manufacture things for us or the gadgets that we need.
“Once we have a lot of SMEs the economy will start being boosted and a lot of jobs will be created. Then our students who are graduating don’t have to go looking for white collar jobs.’’
Discussants, like the lecturer from Kaduna State University Suwaiba Shehu Ibrahim, Special Adviser to Kano State Governor on Rural and Communities Development, Dr. Ibrahim BM Gaya, Umar Sani Macho industrialist based in Kano,
Dr. Clement Otu, Amb. Segun Olugbile further explained that with renewed hope agenda, the private sector is looking forward to seeing how they are going to collaborate with the government being it the highest employer of labor and the mover of the economy.
“So we want to see the manifesto and the program designed for the industrial and business community and see how we can have collaboration with the incoming government after the election.”
Meanwhile, moderators like Ibrahim Mujtaba, Mary Makanjuola
and Shirley Eferemo played tremendous roles as the three different panelists.