By Chizoba Ogbeche
The minister of youth development, Boni Haruna, has said that youth empowerment was key to political and economic development of the country.
Haruna stated this, yesterday, in Abuja, while giving an opening remark at a round table discussion on “Investing In Young People,” organised by the National Population Commission (NPC) in collaboration with UNFPA to commemorate the 2014 World Population Day.
The minister who was represented by, Deputy Director, Mr. Oduyebo Samuel, Enterprises, said: “It is very important that Nigeria should emulate best practices from other regions of the world, such as Asia, where economic miracles attained have justified the consistent and massive investment in youth empowerment over a long period.
“Recognising that the young people remain the greatest asset in the growth and development of any nation, including Nigeria, the present administration has made massive investment in young Nigerians through empowerment.”
Speaking further he said: “It is strongly believed that assisting the young people to realise their potentials will be in the best interest of the society at large hence the present administration has put in place more funds in educational sectors and has also established more educational institutions to enable young people have access to education.
“In addition, government has put in place intervention programmes and projects to address the challenges of youth unemployment such as SURE-P, graduate internship programme, youth development and skills acquisition centres to address the needs of young people.”
Earlier, in his welcome address, the chairman NPC, Eze Duru-iheoma, Said that the round table was designed to bring stakeholders together to discuss the issues in relation with realities and peculiarities in the country and proffer solutions that could be adequately implemented.
The chairman, who was represented by the commission’s head of Population Management, Saidu Usman, made case for more attention to be focused on population because it affected all aspects of life.
