Tinubu reform, necessary for economic stability – DG NDE Agara, highlights agency’s initiatives for curbing unemployment

By Kayode Abdul

The Director General for the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Hon. Silas Agara has commended President Bola Tinubu for his boldness to embark on the ongoing reform to place the country on the path of economic and social stability.

Agara, made this commendation on Wednesday while speaking with Journalists in Ilorin, Kwara state capital.

The former deputy governor of Nasarawa state adding that the reform is already yielding results in some sectors with commendation from international communities.

“For me, we can see that there is light at the end of the tunnel, although there’s no change that doesn’t come with challenge, the challenge is not permanent but we must have to go through it all as Nigerians, and we have started seeing the light.

“We have been getting commendation from the international communities and today our refineries are working which was not so in the past and the other two have been challenged to come on stream this year, Port-Harcourt one is working, Warri is working, Port-Harcourt two has been challenged, Kaduna has been challenged and our president is been recognized at the international level given the kind of reforms he’s implementing and I believe that we stand to benefit in the long run.

“We don’t need anyone to tell us that things are going to change, look at security issues, go to Kaduna today, I can’t remember the last time we heard of any attack on that road, look at southern Kaduna today, there is peace, we are not saying the issue of security has been addressed 100% but there’s improvement”.

Speaking on some of the initiatives of his agency National Directorate of Employment (NDE) Agara said the agency has remodelled its activities in line with the renewed hope agenda of the Tinubu administration and to checkmate irregularities.

“What we did immediately we assume office is to create programs, the mandate of NDE is to create employment opportunities for our unemployed youths, people initially have misconceptions about

NDE, some out of ignorance believe that it’s an agency that distributes employment letters, not knowing that what we do is to create a programme initiative for the unemployed youths with empowerment support in terms of start-up packs.

“We had flagged a programme last year to accommodate the minimum of ten youths per political ward nationwide and that is what we are implementing right now, here we give equal opportunities to all Nigerians who applied within the age bracket of 18-35.

“You must apply with your NIN, Why we did that is to check double registration that people do, you would agree with me that in the past within NDE, you find a youth benefitting two, three times a year, get trained, received start-up pack, dispose it, or from NDE migrate to SMEDAN, ITF so this time around we have come up with a portal and with this we have been able to check some certain things, like I said we might not be perfect but to minimize the situation of sharp practices, I am happy we are making progress.

“The programme is designed in the sense that the youths are the ones that choose skills they want to be trained in, we don’t compel them to go into the programme and we have factored out about 3,000 slots for a person living with disabilities in every state.

“We have about thirty set skills programs that have been designed and implemented in most cases what is being done in Kwara might not be the same as what we are doing in Kano because of environmental differences or cultural differences, more in digital programme, vocational programme, fashion designing, confectioneries, agricultural related programmes, goat keeping, poultry, solar power programme and other programme designed to address the interest of these youths.

“I am happy at least some youths are buying into the programme, we have been able to prove to those doubting the efficacy of the programme. Going forward this year when we implement the second phase of the renewed hope job initiative, we are going to get a lot of participation from our youths because this is the first phase that we will be rounding off in February and hopefully by April we will design the second phase.

“In addition to that we are having a community market which we are flagging off in some few states, these are markets where the youths we have trained can display their products for patronage, that is what we are doing in some communities, we are doing that of Osun on Thursday so these are what we are doing in our little way for a start, knowing that we just came in July last year,” he said