NDE empowers 586 unemployed youths, women in Kogi with ‘marketable skills’

In order to keep Nigerian youths away from restiveness, 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 the absence of White Collar jobs.

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.

While declaring open the one to three months training in Lokoja, the Director-General of NDE, Abubakar Nuhu Fikpo who was represented by Abubakar Zakari, Kogi State Coordinator, said the beneficiaries comprise 12 unemployed youths and women under the Advanced-NOAS category while 420 unemployed youths and women were under Basic-NOAS and others under the Quick Fix Demand Driven skills.

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The Director-General also pointed out 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 to earn a good living, as he expressed the determination of the Federal Government to create jobs for the unemployed citizens to alleviate poverty, hunger, and insecurity across the country.

Fikpo equally 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.

Earlier, in his keynote address, the representative of the Director of Vocational Skills Development Department, 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,” advised them to take their training seriously.

Responding on behalf of the trainees, Yusuf Muhammed Zamil commended the NDE and President Muhammadu Buhari for embarking on Social Investment Programmes that had touched positively the lives of the down-trodden Nigerians, as he gave the assurance that the opportunity offered them would not be in vain but would be greatly justified.