From Joseph Amedu, Lokoja
The National Directorate of Employment (NDE), has ushered into the new year, the empowerment of 586 unemployed youths and women in Kogi to acquire marketable skills that would make them self-reliant in absence of White Collar jobs bedeviling Nigeria in recent times.
The training which is under the Advanced and Basic National Open Apprenticeship and Quick Fix Demand Driven Skills of the Vocational Skills Development Department is also aimed at curbing the rising insecurity across the country.
Declaring the 1 to 3 months training open in Lokoja on Tuesday, the Director General of NDE, Mallam Abubakar Nuhu Fikpo who was represented by the Kogi State Coordinator of NDE, Mallam Abubakar Zakari, said the beneficiaries comprises of 126 unemployed youths and women under the Advanced-NOAS category while 420 unemployed youths and women were under Basic-NOAS and 40 under the Quick Fix Demand Driven Skills.
The Director General also said that the training would enable the beneficiaries acquire the requisite skills to be able to provide the needed services to the public that would add value to the society and enable them earn a good living.
Fikpo expressed the determination of the Federal Government to create jobs for the unemployed citizens to alleviate poverty, hunger and insecurity across the country.
He admonished youths nationwide to shun social vices like cultism, drug abuse, prostitution among others and embrace the offer of the opportunity to be self-employed.
In his keynote address, the representative of the Director of Vocational Skills Development Department, Mallam Yusuf Umar called on the trainees to be mindful of the saying that”There is No Food for a Lazy Man” and that “The Idle Mind is the Devil’s Workshop” and advised them to take their training seriously.
Responding on behalf of the trainees, Yusuf Muhammed Zamil appreciated the NDE and President Muhammadu Buhari for embarking on Social Investment Programmes that had touched positively on the lives of the down trodden Nigerians.
He gave the assurance that the opportunity offered them will not be in vain but would be greatly justified.