The Minister of
Youth Development, Akinlabi Olasunkanmi, has said the zonal
sensitisation programme meant to mobilise youth for active
participation in the April polls will be launched in Osogbo, the Osun
State capital on Wednesday, March 3, 2011. Other zonal workshops for
the same purpose, he said, would run through the month of March with
direct participation of Nigerian youth leaders. He made the disclosure
yesterday in Abuja while briefing the press on his ministry’s 2010
activities, saying that the ministry organised nationwide vocational,
entrepreneurial and agricultural training for youth across the six
geopolitical zones of the country.
According to him,
the 12-day capacity building was replicated in all the six zones with
the southwest focusing on fish farming, poultry and leather work with
youth cooperative societies as the main vehicle for the training. He
added that 20 youth were selected from each of the six states of the
south-south with an understanding that the state government in the
zones will expand the initiative in their respective states. In the
northeast, northcentral and northwest zones, the focus was more
specific on animal husbandry, sheep and goat rearing and leather work.
Also 20 youth from each of the 19 northern states participated in the
empowerment programme, while training for both the south-south and
southeast was held at Umudim area of Imo State with nine states in
attendance. The goal in the other zones was to train the youth for
sustainable self employment skills by exposing them to poultry
production, cassava production and processing, leather works and other
relevant skills acquisition programmes. Mr. Olasunkanmi further
explained that his ministry hosted the Commonwealth top officials in
Abuja in March 2010 with the specific goal of crafting Africa’s
position on the review of the Commonwealth Youth programme. The event,
according to him, was attended by representatives from Commonwealth
countries in Africa, reaffirming Nigeria’s leading position in the
African youth sector. He stated that the critical issue of job creation
and youth engagement topped the agenda of the action plan which he
delivered in his address on behalf of Africa at the Commonwealth Mid
Term Review Panel meeting held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, last year.
Determined to fast-track the implementation of the National Youth
Policy, the ministry, he said, organised a training workshop on the
strategic framework for the implementation of the National Youth
Policy. The aim, he stated, was to come up with a draft document that
will compliment the National Youth Policy aimed at translating the
policy into actionable plans for promoting actual development of
Nigerian youth.
