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Imoke charges Nigerian youths to de-emphasis white-collar jobs

By Anietie Akpan, Calabar
03 August 2015   |   3:48 am
THE immediate past Governor of Cross River State, Liyel Imoke, has charged Nigerian youths to de-emphasis reliance on white-collar jobs. The former governor, who indicated his readiness to venture into agri-business, emphasized the need for Nigerian youths to imbibe new values in ethics, morals, career and entrepreneurship.
liyel-imoke

Imoke

THE immediate past Governor of Cross River State, Liyel Imoke, has charged Nigerian youths to de-emphasis reliance on white-collar jobs. The former governor, who indicated his readiness to venture into agri-business, emphasized the need for Nigerian youths to imbibe new values in ethics, morals, career and entrepreneurship.

Delivering a speech at the Bridge Leadership Foundation 2015 career day held on Saturday, he said that politics was good if one was genuinely committed to service but the youths should always think of employing themselves noting that the Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) created more job opportunities in Nigeria.

He counselled youths against over dependence on white-collar jobs and politics, adding that the foundation was conceived not because he was a governor but rather to provide an opportunity for Cross Riverians to develop themselves and realise their goals. According to Imoke: “We would work on our mentorship programme and try to imbibe core values in our youths, provided that our mentors are the right type of mentors.

There is a preponderance of people wanting to be politicians not because of public service, but because there are temporary job opportunities in politics.”

Imoke disclosed his intention to venture into agriculture as a private business and that “after politics, most politicians don’t thrive in anything else. Politics is good if you really have commitment to service.”

While applauding the presentations at the occasion, he said: “I was listening attentively to Affiong, on how to make it in the private sector, because I am going to do private sector and I hope to learn from her experiences. “I have been out of the private sector for so long and the sector has evolved in such a manner that I need to take few lessons.

So, we can even see that the greatest opportunity for employment is in the SMEs sector. Just listening to her, I knew what I want to do in the future, particularly in agriculture. My farm may be supplying her company with some of her agricultural needs.”

Presenting a paper titled: “Career trends for young people in Nigeria’s emerging economy”, one of the resource person, Gbenga Sesan, urged Nigeria youths to identify their passion in life and follow it with the right attitude in order to succeed.

Sesan, who is the executive director of Paradigm Initiative, Nigeria, decried the attitude of some Nigeria youths towards learning and tasked participants at the event, especially the youths, on the need to invest wisely in their passion.

He said that there was no law that stopped a student from pursing and developing his or her career while in the school. Even as he frowned at some students who delight in blaming lecturers for their failures, Sesan urged students to always take advantage of the Internet and social media to develop their personal skill.

He said, “today, we have a generation of youths who want to succeed without investing in their passion; there is nothing that you would become without investing in yourself.

Some of these Internet tools many of us take for granted are tools that can connect one to opportunities; your attitude to learning has to change.”

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