By Joan Nwagwu
The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) has blamed rise of unemployment on the ignorance of youths to acquire skills development.
Malam Abubakar Fikpo, Director General of NDE said this in a statement on Saturday in Abuja.
According to him, unemployment crisis in Nigeria is a function of the geometric rise in population and ignorance of available opportunities for skills acquisition and self employment by diverse unemployment groups in Nigeria.
“This simply means that the mentality that if it is not a formal office work, one is not employed, has been a big challenge, although in recent time, there has been a serious positive change.
“As year 2023 winds down, it is worthy of note that NDE has done tremendously well in its job creation programmes.
“In spite of the challenge of global economic depression that equally affected government’s resources, the NDE is proud to say that it provided job opportunities to many unemployed persons and put smile on their faces,”he said.
Fikpo said that the NDE had rained and empowered many graduates of tertiary institutions, school leavers and drop out through different skills acquisition schemes and programmes.
He also said the agency had assisted many with soft loans to kickstart businesses.
Fikpo added that, we are geared to do more in the year 2024.
He noted that having achieved a lot in line with its job creation mandate over the past years of its existence, the NDE was at a new phase of what would be described as consolidation.
“Consolidation to make all of its job creation/empowerment programmes more visible, efficient and impactful.
“This new phase is being driven by the gearing supervision of the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mrs Nkeiruka Onyejeocha.
“She is working assiduously to ensuring that job creation initiatives of the current administration, change the narrative of unemployment landscape in our country,”he said.
He therefore added that the NDE is sustaining deliberate efforts to expand its job creation scope within the ambit of the Renewed Hope Agenda of President BolaTinubu.
According to Fikpo, as part of the effort, we are reviewing our schemes and programmes.
“Serious attention is being giving to all our method of operations. We are fostering collaboration with other government agencies, private sector organisations, donor agencies and philanthropists.
“The reality is that government has a lot of responsibilities that involves utilization of money, but unfortunately resources are very scarce.
“This is therefore why we are very serious about collaborating with all and sundry henceforth to ensure the expansion of our schemes and programmes,”he said.
The NDE boss also<span;>t re-emphasised that the agency was committed to the provision of innovative ideas to scale up its job employment creation models.
Fikpo said this would continue to complement the micro economic policies of the federal government under the leadership of Mr President.
“NDE is poised to create more jobs especially in the hinterland of the country through our various schemes,”he added.(NAN)(www.nannews.ng)