Maryam Aminu
The Hon. Minister, Federal Ministry of Youth Development, Dr Jamila Bio Ibrahim has expressed the Ministry’s commitment to partner and collaborate with Katsina State and promised to create employment for Nigerian youths.
The Minister made this known while hosting the Executive Governor of Katsina State, Mallam Dikko Umar Radda PhD, and his team to her office, in Abuja yesterday.
She disclosed the plan of her ministry to establish youth village project in Katsina state that will be built around commodities with comparative advantage in the agricultural value chain like cotton.
” There is no better state to engage young people in cotton farming like Katsina. We hope to work with you to develop that value chain.”
She noted that it is one sector that is capable of generating jobs.
The Minister observed that the cotton from the north could be used to produce fabrics that can be supplied to other parts of the country like Aba market, thereby increasing economic interdependence and fostering equitable relationships and brotherliness among Nigerians.
Dr. Bio said the National Youth Bank will serve as a funding mechanism for the project that the Ministry wants to embark on when established.
She further said that the Ministry is in the process of mobilizing partners and resources for all these projects and considers Katsina state as a partner from the northwest geo-political zone.
In his address, the Katsina state governor, Dikko Umar Radda, disclosed that he was in the Ministry to seek area in which his state could partner with the youth ministry.
The governor emphasized that the focus of every administration should be on the teeming youth in the country if there must be development.
He said, “For us to develop as a nation we need to develop the youth, we need to roll out plans, initiatives and programmes that will have a bearing on the Nigerian Youth.”
He stressed the need for government to ensure that the youths are fully engaged and equipped to drive the economic development of the country.
The governor lamented the current situation where youths are idle and redundant, warning that it could serve as a fertile ground for recruitment of bandits and other criminals.
He said, ” I went round the 361 wards of my state during the electioneering campaign, I have seen the time bomb that is awaiting this country if nothing drastic is done about youth development.”
Earlier in his opening remarks, the new permanent secretary of the Ministry, Dr Umar Ahmed Dunoma, welcomed the governor and expressed the readiness of the Ministry to collaborate with Katsina state.
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