The federal government through the office of the Senior special assistant to the president on Youth and student matters, Comrade Jude Imagwe and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) has commenced process of collaboration on youth entrepreneurship training in Nigeria institutions.
Both are to set up committee on area of possible collaborations which may include a re-orientation project that would encourage youth from primary, secondary and tertiary institutions on entrepreneurship skill.
This was revealed yesterday when Comrade Imagwe paid a courtesy call on the director general of SMEDAN in his office.
He said the incidenct that led to the death of some youth at the ill fated Nigerian Immigration recruitment calls for decisive action to reduce youth unemployment.
Both offices will be partnering to set up a data base that will focus on the number of youth being employed by the Federal government on a yearly basis, this he said will enable the government to be focused on training more youth on skill acquisition through SMEDAN.
“One of the reasons for my coming to SMEDAN is to see how the polytechnic, colleges of education and Monotechnics can benefit from the entrepreneurship training of the agency,” he said.
Responding, the director general of SMEDAN Alhaji Bature Umar Masari, said the agency was ready to partner with well meaning Nigerians to reduce unemployment in the nation.
He said the government is striving to address the issue of unemployment, especially among the youth hence it has set up a lot of measures to reduce the rate and ameliorate the situation.
He said SMEDAN is poised in tackling the situation in the realization of her mandate of establishing a structured and efficient micro, small and medium enterprises sector that will enhance sustainable economic development
“Our intention is to ensure a seamless implementation of the NEDEP programme, that is the programme that enables us to identify the potential of each local government in Nigeria, our intention is to guild Nigerians to agree to set up enterprises along the value chain lines for those areas they have competitive advantages identified in every local government areas.
“We have far reaching programmes that have to do with the improvement of the life of our young ones, we have the unity programme that was initiated for benefits of our youth in the Nigeria universities and we have agreed as agencies to widen the scope of the programme to include all tertiary institutions,” he assured.
