Sokoto State coordinator of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Abdulkarim Sirika, has appealed to unemployed Nigerian youths to embrace skills and entrepreneurship rather than waiting for white collar jobs that are not really available.
Sirika said rather than waiting for the usual 30 days to get a salary, a skilled or entrepreneurial person earns income almost daily.
In a keynote address he delivered on behalf of the director-general of NDE, Malam Abubakar Nuhu Fipko at the flag-off of the 2024 Sustainable Agricultural Development Training Scheme for 50 participants (SADTS), in Sokoto, he affirmed that “skills acquisitions should be a deliberate choice for self-reliance and effective contributors into the socio-economy of the nation”.
He said, “The NDE has been carrying out its responsibilities through sensitization, counselling, de-radicalisation and re-orienting the minds of unemployed youths to de-emphasize the search for non-existent white-collar jobs and embrace skills acquisition as a deliberate choice for self-reliance and effective contributor into the socio-economy of the nation”.
In her welcome address, the NDE acting head of rural employment department in Sokoto, Hakiya Palmata Hassan said the agency is helping to curb mass unemployment, reduce rural -urban drift and greatly improve the agricultural sector in Nigeria.
Continuing, Palmata said, the 50 participants for the training were drawn from three LGAs of Sokoto, adding “they will undergo three months training that covers both theory and practical sessions in animal husbandry, poultry farming, vegetable production ranging from using mechanized farming techniques, Al artificial insemination in animals and improved modern seedlings”.
In his encouragement to the 50 participants, the NDE director of rural employment department in Abuja represented by Mr Joshua Fagbemi, said the programme would prepare them to become reliable players in the agricultural value chain.
“As a farmer, you can derive interest in either transporting goods, storage, professing or even marketing depending on the value chain you desired,” Fagbemi advised.
