Group Moves Against Youth Unemployment With 500 Tech Hubs

Newly inaugurated President of the Nigerian Youth Congress (NYC), Comrade Jethro Terhile Annum, has unveiled an ambitious blueprint to tackle the country’s deepening youth unemployment crisis.

In his inaugural address at the Congress National Executive yesterday in Abuja, Annum said Nigeria stands at “the dawn of a new era,” insisting that the country must urgently break the cycle of poverty, informal labour and wasted potential that continues to define the lives of millions of its young citizens.
Rolling out the first pillar of his administration’s agenda, Annum launched the “Digital Naija Initiative,” a nationwide ICT and Artificial Intelligence (AI) capacity-building programme targeting one million youths in its first year.

He disclosed that the scheme would be implemented in partnership with global tech giants, including Google and Microsoft, alongside leading Nigerian innovators such as Andela and Flutterwave. Under the plan, 500 youth tech hubs will be established across all geopolitical zones, equipped with high-speed internet and modern digital tools.

“By 2027, we aim to place 500,000 trained youths in remote jobs worldwide,” he said. “A young woman in Maiduguri will code her way into a Silicon Valley freelance gig, while an AI specialist in Owerri builds solutions for European e-commerce firms.”

He lamented that nearly 80 million young Nigerians remain jobless despite the nation’s huge demographic advantage.

Citing the State of the Nigerian Youth Report 2025, he stated that although Nigeria boasts over 70 million youths aged 15–35, economic progress has not kept pace with population growth.

He warned that with 93 percent of young Nigerians in the informal sector trapped in insecure, low-paying work, the nation faces a socioeconomic time bomb.

“These are not mere statistics,” he said. “They are the stories of brothers and sisters hustling through Lagos traffic, graduates in Kano waiting endlessly for opportunities, and innovators in Enugu whose talents wither on the vine,” Annum added.

He added that foundational AI training would be made available to ensure inclusiveness, with the NYC working with the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy to ease data costs for participants.

Annum also unveiled the “Green Harvest Revolution,” an agricultural transformation programme designed to reposition farming as a profitable, youth-driven enterprise.

He called for the allocation of 10 million hectares of government land to youth-led agribusinesses, supported by low-interest loans from the Bank of Agriculture and technical expertise from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

According to him, the initiative will deploy young Nigerians into lucrative value chains including cassava-to-ethanol production, modern rice milling, cocoa processing and cashew value addition for export markets.

“Imagine vast tracts of land in Benue and Taraba buzzing with youth cooperatives deploying drone technology and AI-driven crop monitoring,” he said. “In Ondo, young entrepreneurs will craft premium chocolates for export. In Kogi, cashew will become the new crude oil.”

He projected that the agricultural programme could lift at least two million youths out of unemployment within five years and boost national GDP by five percent.Annum appealed to the federal government and private sector to join forces with the Congress to implement the programmes, stressing that youth empowerment must be treated as a national investment rather than charity.

“To government, we say: partner with us, not to patronise us. To the private sector: your CSR budgets are our seed capital—join the revolution,” he said.

He urged Nigerian youths to embrace innovation, leadership and self-reliance, emphasising that the NYC under his watch would “build bridges where walls once stood.”

“The future is not something we wait for; it is something we build,” he said, declaring that “the era of idle Nigerian youths must end.”

The event drew youth leaders from within and across the African continent, academics, and top government officials from across the 36 states of the country.

The chairman of the NYC Board of Trustees, Comrade Yakubu Shendam, expressed confidence in the new leadership, recalling how Annum had served as his vice president (North Central) during his tenure as president of the National Youth Council.