In fulfillment of the federal government’s plans to reduce unemployment in Nigeria through President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Initiative, the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) will provide about 2,600 indigenes of Enugu state with employment opportunities.
The lucky beneficiaries are among the 10 persons each shortlisted from electoral wards in all the 36 states of the Federation including Abuja, designed to engage about 93,731 unskilled and unemployed persons across the country.
The Director General of NDE, Silas Ali Agara, disclosed this weekend during the official flag off the programme in Enugu.
Agara who was represented at the occasion by the Enugu State Coordinator of NDE, Mrs Adaku Ojobo, said under the Initiative, at least 10 persons are recruited to benefit from 30 skills, spanning Vocational Skills Development, Small Scale Enterprises, Rural Employment Promotion and Special Public Works.
“The current employment initiative has been designed to engage a total of 93,731 unskilled and unemployed persons across Nigeria. We have ensured that a minimum of 10 persons from each of the 8,809 electoral wards in Nigeria were recruited to benefit from the 30 skills set across our four core programmes of Vocational Skills Development, Small Scale Enterprises, Rural Employment Promotion and Special Public Works,” he said.
The Director General who appreciated the mode of the recruitment through digital registration, said that they equally included ICT skill into the training programme to equip the beneficiaries to be globally competitive.
“I am delighted to inform you that 40,000 out of the 93,731 persons enrolled for the programme will be receiving training in ICT and digital skills. This is a deliberate step by the NDE in order to equip our youths with emerging skills that will enable them to be globally competitive,” he said.
Advising the lucky beneficiaries, the NDE Enugu State Coordinator, Mrs Adaku Ojobo, urged them to be committed to the training with the aim of acquiring skills which she said would have a multiplier effect because when trained, they not only are gainfully employed but would employ others.
Ojobo also said after the training, they would be resettled into productive enterpreneurial lives through the provision of tools, equipment and start up capital and therefore urged them to take their training serious in order to benefit from the Initiative.
One of the invited resource persons, Ambassador Mrs Amaka Nweke of the Women Support Women Community Network (WOSCONET), an Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), commended NDE and the federal government for the programme but urged them to sustain it so that it would not be a one-off thing and end like N-Power programme.
Nweke said when people are gainfully employed, crime would reduce significantly in the society.
