FG partners UFUGOLD to develop Niger Delta youth
By Dave Okpogadie, Asaba
In its determination to tackle unemployment and youth restiveness through entrepreneurship in the Niger Delta states, the Federal Government (FG) has commenced a partnership with UFUGOLD Projects Services Limited to train and empower youths of the area through entrepreneurial acquisition.
Declaring the two-week training programme open, the Principal and Chief Executive of the Petroleum Training Institute, at Effurun in Uvwie Local Government Area of Delta, Dr. Henry Adimula, said that the partnership between the FG and UFUGOLD was aimed at reducing unemployment and its effects on youths.
Adimula, who said he was confident that the youths would be well-developed within the two-week duration of the training, disclosed that they would be trained in the production of petroleum products, such as soap, cream, special corrosive painting as well as in repairs, maintenance and in other various entrepreneurial vocations.
Adimula, who appreciated the organisers of the programme, urged participants to maximise the opportunity by putting the skills acquired during the training to practice, adding that it would help them become self reliant.
“At the end of the programme, all of you would be expected to become entrepreneurs, self-reliant. You will be given the necessary skills that would help you be on your own,” Adimula added.
In his remarks, the Managing Director of UFUGOLD Projects Services Ltd, Hon. Ufuoma Johngold, stated that the intensive training was aimed at making the youths self-reliant.
He urged them to value the novel knowledge and skills to be acquired more than the empowerment that would go with it, noting that not only would it make them self-reliant, but would turn them into employers of labours in the shortest possible time.
Johngold, who expressed worries over incessant reported negative vices among the Niger Delta youths, said that the training and empowerment programme became necessary in order to develop both physical infrastructure and human capital in them to enhance significantly the quality of living in the region.
He added that the main objective of the initiative of the partnership was to make the youths of the Niger-Delta to be self-employed and meaningfully engaged.
He admonished the participants to look beyond the start-up empowerment packages, but to use the acquired knowledge and empowerment start-up packages to start up various small businesses and steadily grow to big entrepreneurs.
Also speaking, Dr. Abubakar Dembo, Chief Internal Auditor of PTI , who said the empowerment was necessitated by the need to develop the manpower capacity of the Niger Delta states, disclosed that the training was an annual programme designed for Niger Delta youths and designed to pull youths out of unemployment.
