Hajja Fanna from Gamboru, Ngala Local Government Area, Borno State, was among the 27,000 unemployed youths given temporary jobs under the Extended Special Public Works (ESPWs) Programme which was unveiled yesterday in Maiduguri on Wednesday.
Like most of her colleagues, Fanna received a wheelbarrow, cutlass, broom, bucket, rain boots as well as other environmental sanitation tools from the officials of the National Directorate of Employees (NDE), the agency empowered to conduct the programme. She said she would not mind sweeping the streets and discarding refuse as long as she would receive payment.
Money saved from work would be used to start a business venture, she explained.
Fanna said hundreds of youths, whose small and medium businesses were destroyed by insurgents and left in poverty, hoped to revive their livelihoods from the allowances obtained under the programme,
Mustapha Bukar and Bazanna Umar, both from Jere Local Government, too, said the programme would help them get rid of joblessness and move out of poverty and depression.
They would use their allowances to start financially self-sufficient businesses.
Bukar and Umar agreed that lack of farming opportunities in the rural communities, because of insurgency, had left thousands of families struggling to make ends meet and said that social protection programmes were required to help millions of youths entangled in the vicious circle of poverty.
Acting Director General, NDE, Malam Abubakar Nuhu Fikpo, said the programme was a significant step in the Nigeria’s quest to win the war against mass unemployment while ameliorating the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said the labour absorptive capacity of the public work sector made it a vehicle in the job creation process and maintenance of public infrastructure. He said the programme which would be implemented in the 774 local government areas across the country was the most far-reaching grassroot-based employment creation initiative.
He said the programme was designed as a veritable tool through which the lives of 774,000 unemployed youths will be positively touched in the next three months.
According to him, many communities would be transformed by the programme.
“Our communities will receive face-lift through the activities of the participants as they will engage in various community and environment-specific work activities ranging from drainage evacuation and maintenance, irrigation, Great Green Wall and orchard maintenance among others,” he said.
The DG said working tools and protective wears were provided to the participants who were documented and their details captured by designated banks to ensure fraud-free, transparent and fair service delivery.
He said supervisors were appointed in all the electoral wards of the country to ensure effective monitoring.
In his remarks, Minister of State for Agriculture, Alhaji Mustsapha Baba Shehuri, said 27, 000 unemployed youths and women from the 27 LGAs of the state will benefit directly from the programme.
The minister disclosed that the participants who would engage in public works would earn allowances which would be paid regularly.
“This will cost the federal government the sum of N1.62 billion as direct allowances to be paid to the participants.
The socio-economic effects of this quantum of money going directly into the local economy of the communities in Borno State cannot be overemphasised,” he said.
The minister said the government had in many ways provided learning and training programmes to mitigate unemployment and improve economic growth.
Deputy Governor of Borno State, Hon Umar Usman Kadafur, said the economic hardship being caused by insurgency in the state was exacerbated by the COVID-19 restrictions and called on federal authorities to give special attention to the state. He maitained the programme would fight unemployment and poverty in the state.
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