Here comes an opportunity for Nigerian youths to benefit from a N175billion empowerment programme set up by the Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID).
As part of its commitment to increasing business opportunities and creating a standard of living for citizens in the country, business leaders including CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, Dangote Group Chairman Aliko Dangote amongst others have made effort to achieve this by empowering four million youths with a sum of N175billion.
Recall that CACOVID was created by the Bankers’ Committee, comprising of banks and major private sector players to address the funding challenges faced by federal and state governments fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to CBN Boss, Godwin Emefiele, who chairs the Banker’s committee said that the rate of unemployment among the youths, was a critical factor behind the #EndSARS protests.
He said: “CACOVID has committed to creating a high impact youth development programme that will provide technical and vocational education to over four million youths over the next five years.
“Students will be trained on craftwork, plumbing, masonry, carpentry, and other artisanal related skills for which sufficient demand exist in Nigeria.
“Over N150 billion is expected to be deployed towards the set up and implementation of the youth development program, which will be available at select training centers across the country.”
In the same vein, Emefiele identified the provision of employable skills as the ultimate objective of the intervention.
He said: “We believe this initiative can lead to the creation of over four million jobs over the next five years.
“For the out of school graduates that possess certain Entrepreneurial skills, CA-COVID will be working with Bankers Committee to complete the Creative center at National Arts Theater area of Lagos in four select areas namely: ICT and software design/development, fashion, music and movies. This project is expected to cost the Bankers Committee over N40billion.”
While explaining the reasons why security should not be left for the government body to handle alone, he said all private sectors have roles to play to safe guard the country.
His words: “Addressing insecurity could undermine confidence in the economy and derail the efforts of the government in enabling faster recovery of the economy, following the impact of COVID-19. The coalition has, therefore, committed N100 billion to fully rehabilitate all 44 damaged and destroyed police stations nationwide.
“The fund will be used to procure equipment and gadgets for the Nigerian Police Force over the next two years as CACOVID contribution to fully modernise the Nigerian Police.
“Indeed, owners of business premises desire a secure environment to conduct their legitimate businesses. We therefore seize this opportunity to once again, appeal to members of the private sector, who we will be calling on again, to rally round CA-COVID to secure not only our businesses but also our country.
“We also request the private sector to work with to operate under this platform which has been approved by Mr President. “To achieve this, the coalition requested and received N39.64 billion and donations from over 200 Nigerians and corporate organisations, who provided in-kind donations in support of the fight against COVID-19.”
Speaking on the development, Aliko Dangote stressed that the CA-COVID team will create a database for artisans that would benefit from the new training in other to reduce the risk of involving the wrong set of people.
He said: “We all have repairs and with that data, you can know who to call for repairs. What we are doing is that we are providing them with money to buy tools.
“So, as soon as they get the training which is free, which we are paying for, then they have the guarantee that they get jobs,”
Similarly, Access Bank boss, Herbert Wigwe maintained that security is an essential factor in a country.
His words: “The most important thing has to do with issues of employment. The pandemic and the lockdown created several problems.”
“All of us have a responsibility to make Nigeria succeed,” the CA-COVID initiative has brought enormous success to the people and helped in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Meanwhile, Esetupe, a key driver of CACOVID, hinted that selected students at the end of the programme will receive loans to support their entrepreneurial pursuits.
