By Goodluck Ikiebe.
The Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Mr Sunday Dare, has restated the commitment of the Ministry to scale up programmes that will accelerate job creation and skill acquisition for Nigerian Youth in 2022.
The Minister stated this during the Ministry’s budget defence session before the House Committee on Youth development at the House of Representatives on Monday.
Mr Dare reeled out some of the achievements of the Ministry in 2021 to include 6,054 Youths benefitting from the National Youth Investment Fund (NYIF) while another 25,000 have been shortlisted for training, after which they will be approved for funds disbursement.
He stated that modalities have been put in place to substantially scale up the scheme in the 2022 fiscal year.
Mr Dare also highlighted the Economic Sustainability stimulus plan which was crafted in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic in which 4, 430 youth entreprenuers including solar technicians, agric technicians, software professionals, IOT professionals, animation professionals amongst others, were trained, across the 36 States and six geo-political zones.
He emphasised that the training is different from others because beneficiaries got the requisite tools to start-up as entreprenuers.
On Digital skills, the Youth and Sports Minister revealed that a programme christened DEEL – Digital Skills Acquisition, Employability, Entreprenuership and Leadership scheme, established in 2019 with a target of training 500,000 youths in 4 years has reached the over 198,000 mark so far in 2021.
Mr Dare restated the resolve of the Ministry to increase access to the programme in 2022.
The House Committee Chairman on Youth Development, Hon. Yemi Adaramodu, commended the Minister and his team for their efforts to develop and empower the Youths, stating that more must be done in 2022 to ensure greater impact.
The Deputy Chairman, Hon. Ari Muhammed Abdulmumin, while commending the Minister, stated he has earned himself the sobriquet, “Man of the Youths” on account of his giant strides in a short while in office.
