By David Agba
Abuja
President/ Chief Executive Officer of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has announced plans to spend a whooping N6billion on the training of 100,000 artisans in the country, in collaboration with the Industrial Training Fund.
Although he did not state the programme duration, the business giant however said the training would be done annually, as part of the company’s social responsibility to further reduce unemployment among the nation’s army of youth.
Dangote made this known at the weekend during an interactive session with media executives in Lagos.
The richest man in Africa also said that this was part of the groups’ effort at creating employment, adding that Nigeria needs to create the needed jobs to keep the teeming youths off the streets as well as cut down crime rate.
He said: “Our foundation is planning to train the nation’s artisans, about 100,000, and this will be done annually. We are doing this in partnership with the ITF. About N6billion, I think, is set aside for this purpose.
“We can’t afford to sit down and be watching our youth not having jobs. It’s dangerous. I was In Ilorin with the CBN governor, and you need to see how these youth blocked us, asking for money. If we don’t do something about it now, they will even not allow us walk on our roads again, so we need to do something fast.”
On the issue of investors being granted licenses to build refineries with none delving into the venture, the business mogul expressed dismay that “people just come and give fake hope and collect licenses. Only recently, 17 of them, none of whom has established one refinery, formed an association, saying that they would take their case to the government as regards threats by the government to revoke such idle licenses.
“They are just deceiving themselves because they have nothing to offer, they lack the financial muscle to go into establishment of a refinery. It is when they see that Dangote wants to go into that area that they suddenly wake up from their slumber, giving fake hope instead of them contributing to the growth of our economy.”
He however cautioned those who genuinely want to establish a refinery that it is more economically viable to establish a refinery with large production capacity as this would guarantee returns on investment.
“Nigeria needs entrepreneurs that would take action as par engaging in productive ventures, not those daily making empty talks. It is only Nigerians that can and will develop Nigeria, no American, British, Germany whatsoever will do it for us. We must start thinking of which area we can develop the economy,” he stated.
