Entrepreneurship key to youth employment in Nigeria, says group

The Young Progressive Nigerians Initiative (YPNI), a non-governmental organisation, has described vocational skills and entrepreneurship as the solution to unemployment and poverty in the country.

The group’s convener, Adekunle Osibogun, said this at its annual general meeting (AGM) in Lagos, adding that the YPNI recently trained 500 youths in Ogun State on various vocational skills, as it is focused on promoting entrepreneurship among young Nigerians.

The organisation, which has members from various professions as journalism, law, information technology and medicines, also discussed national issues, especially restructuring, national unity, unemployment, entrepreneurship, insecurity and youth participation in governance.

It also stated that the country needed to evaluate the current political and economic structures to determine whether it should adopt a federal or unitary system of government, noting that the current system appears to have failed.

“The present federal structure is dogged with increased poverty, disunity, under-development, insecurity and expansion of monopolistic tendencies against the equitable distribution of the nation’s wealth.

“We call on the National Assembly and the 36 state Houses of Assembly to incorporate the transfer of census, fingerprint identification and criminal records, labour, mines and minerals resources, police and other government security agencies established by law in the constitutional amendment process.

“Posts, telegraphs and telephones, prisons, quarantine, taxation of incomes, profits and capital gains, trade and commerce of the second schedule legislative powers of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) should be moved from the exclusive list to the concurrent list,” the group said.

However, it admonished the youths from 18 years and above to register and actively participate in the political process.

Its Group Head of Planning, Mammud Yusuf, said that it was time for young Nigerians to acquire management skills to take over the leadership from the old block who have been in government since independence.

Restating the group’s position on the panacea to unemployment in Nigeria, Osibogun argued that instead of competing for limited white-collar jobs in the country, youths should embrace entrepreneurship and vocational skills as an alternative to earn a living.

He stressed that the current political and economic structure would not permit government to provide sustainable jobs for the unemployed in the country.

YPNI also disclosed that the second batch of training on entrepreneurship for youths would commence in October.