Kano State Government empowers over 50,000 youths in two years

The Kano State Government says it has empowered no fewer than 50,000 youths with various skills through training programmes across the 44 local government areas of the state since 2015.

The Senior Special Assistant to Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje, Malam Adamu Unguwargini, disclosed this in an interview with the News of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday.

Unguwargini said that the empowerment programmes were under the government’s new Social Intervention Programme tagged: “Madogara Matasa’’.

According to him, the programme which started at the onset of the Ganduje administration, is to expose youths to various skills such as carpentry, plumbing, panel beating, car repairs and vulcanising.

The governor’s aide said that the State Government had also concluded arrangements to start a new skill acquisition programme that would empower various sets of 30,000 youths monthly across all the 44 local governments.

“This measure will go a long way in complementing the efforts of the Federal Government toward addressing unemployment among youths in the country.

“As you know, white collar jobs are limited, so we want to stimulate the entrepreneurship spirit in our youths in order to liberate them from poverty and enable them to be self-reliant.

“This is the best way to go and believe me the measure will propel small and medium-scale endeavours that are a crucial component of Gov. Ganduje’s economic agenda.

“The idea is to make youths gainfully employed, so that they do not become a nuisance to the society,’’ Unguwargini said.

He further disclosed that in 2016, 72 youths were sponsored by the state government for training in various fields of automobile engineering at the Peugeot Automobile Nigeria Learning Centre in Kaduna.

He said that the beneficiaries had since completed the training and were now training other youths in the state.

The governor’s aide said that the government would soon commence training of females in automobile engineering.

“Recently, under our empowerment programme, we spent N208 million to empower 5,200 tea vendors selected from 484 wards in the 44 local government areas of the state.

“The Kano State Government gave each of the beneficiaries N40,000 worth of empowerment packages such as beverages, noodles, pasta, margarine, eggs and cooking oil to improve their business.

“Our government attaches so much importance to empowerment of its residents because the beneficiaries will become self-reliant at the end, thereby boosting the economic status of the state,’’ Unguwargini said.

These initiatives, he said, would not only take the youths off the street, it would also enhance security of lives and property in the state.