Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State has declared that youths are extremely important to his administration and that the government would train 10,000 in agribusiness, in order to take the state from poverty to prosperity.
Makinde said that the era of using youths as political thugs and forgetting them afterwards had gone for good in the state.
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Instead of the initial 3,300 youth scheduled to take part in training across the fields of poultry, fishery, animal husbandry, crop farming, irrigation system, hydroponics farming, ICT application in agribusiness and farm management, among others, the governor said 10,000 youth would now benefit from the scheme.
The governor, according to a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Taiwo Adisa, stated this while attending the graduation ceremony of the first batch of 300 trainees in the Youth Entrepreneurship in Agribusiness Project (YEAP).
The trainees, drawn from the 33 local governments of the state, spent two weeks at the International Skills Acquisition Centre (ISAC) located inside the CSS Integrated Farms, Gora, Nasarawa State, where they were trained by 15 lecturers/professors across different areas of agriculture and agribusiness.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony, Makinde maintained that the state government would support the beneficiaries by looking for markets for what they will produce.
The governor said, “You are extremely important to me and our administration and I know the importance of empowering our youths. I got into the business at the age of 29 and I am 53 years old now. Since 29 up until today, I have been paying salaries of people and that is what we want to recreate.
“Gone are the days when all that politicians want to do with our youths is use them as political thugs during electioneering and once the election is over, they forget them. But now, we want to partner with you. We want to empower you in the real sense of empowerment so that you can also empower others and you can lead our state from poverty to prosperity”.
