With the recent approval of National Youths Investment Fund of N75 billion by the Federal Executive Council, designed to finance youth-led innovations in three years, experts who spoke to Funmi Ogundare commended the government for setting up the fund, saying that more of such initiatives and programmes will be required to empower Nigerian youths and redirect them to opportunities for engagement and change
Youth unemployment in the country has been a growing concern. This problem has led to increased rate of violent crimes, kidnappings, restiveness and socially deliquent behaviour among them.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics reveals that Nigeria’s unemployment rate as at the second quarter of 2020 was 27.1 per cent indicating that about 21.7 million Nigerians remain unemployed.
The country’s unemployment and underemployment rate representing 28.6 per cent, is a combined 55.7 per cent. The data also reveals the worst-hit are Nigerian youths with over 13.9 million currently unemployed.
In Q3 2018, the last time the report was released, there were about 13.1 million Nigerian youths unemployed. Youth between the ages 15 to 24, have about 6.8 million Nigerians out of jobs and another 7.1 million also unemployed.
With these scary statistics, rather than having the youths engage in various vices, the Federal Executive Council (FEC), during a virtual meeting held towards the end of July, approved the establishment of a N75 billion National Youth Investment Fund (NYIF) geared towards enabling the teeming population of Nigerian youths to be economically motivated for sustainability.
The Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr. Sunday Dare, who spoke on the initiative, said the youth bank was meant to support enterprise among the country’s youths between ages 18 and 35.
The fund is meant to create a special window for accessing credit facilities and financing on the part of youths that will help to fund their ideas, innovations and also support their enterprise.
Well done