Edo State Government has engaged young people to be part of the value chain in the creative hub, Tech Park and Agripreneur to curtail criminality.
This was disclosed by the Commissioner for Youth and Gender Issues, Hon. Andrew Emwanta during a lecture he delivered at the National Defense College Course 31 Study Tour of Edo State, held at the Festival Hall in Government House, Benin City.
According to Emwanta in the lecture, titled, “ Youths Engagement in Governance as a panacea for Youth Restiveness and Criminality in Nigeria,” the Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki is strongly of the view that it is only through youth engagement that the government can deal with criminality.
“There is a security architecture in the state that has engaged young people. What we do as government is to control them. There is the Edo Innovate that train young people in different crafts such as carpentry, the Edo Tech Park Is creating a generation of young persons who have seen the possibilities that they can even make more money in soft ware engineering. They are trained on skills and soft ware design engineering,” he noted
“When they come out from the Tech Park they get jobs in Micro soft. They also get start up packs. The governor believes that the best way to catch the young people attention is when they are engaged either in the arts. There is the Victor Uwaifo creative hub where they are trained as actors, and used for shooting movies,” he added.
Emwanta further disclosed that, “ there is the Ossiomo Power Plant which has provided constant electricity for young persons who have barbing saloons, or small small scale businesses and a lot have been done to create the enabling environment for young people to go into agriculture through the Agripreneur programme of the government.
“The idea is to empower the young people to go into Agriculture like it was done during the days of the Western region government when we had the Cocoa House in Ibadan and the Palm House in Benin city.
“Importantly, if there is twenty four hours power, the young person that has a barbing saloon will not be thinking of crime when he has electricity to power his saloon and that is one of the achievement of the government,” the commissioner noted
According to the Commissioner, the indifference displayed as individual in government to issues of unemployment, restiveness and criminality, including those who make laws and implement them is indeed a time bomb.
“ Therefore, all hands in this regards, all of us , you as Course participants must be on deck to avert the time bomb because a stitch in time saves nine”” he added
