Delta Tackling Insecurity through Job, Wealth Creation, Says SSG

Delta Tackling Insecurity through Job, Wealth Creation, Says SSG

By Omon-Julius Onabu

Delta State Government has stated that the increasing state of insecurity in the country is largely due to massive unemployment.

It added that, consequently, the state Governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa administration has initiated various empowerment schemes through its job and wealth creation programme.

The Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Mr. Chiedu Ebie, stated this when officers and participants from the Nigerian Army College of Logistics, Lagos, visited him in his office in Asaba, the state capital.

The Commandant of the college, Major-General Martins Enendo, led the team that included 53 students, which is in Delta State, as part of the college’s curriculum designed to familiarise the participants with the resources of the states towards strengthening logistic support for military operations in Nigeria.

Ebie noted that the state government realised that high unemployment rate, especially among young graduates and other categories of youths, was largely responsible for the worrisome levels of insecurity in the society, it accordingly launched an aggressive youth entrepreneurship and empowerment machinery to churn out job creators rather than white-collar job seekers.

A special agency, the Delta State Job and Wealth Creation Office, was specifically created by the Okowa administration to oversee the various training and employment schemes with starter-packs and seed money for beneficiaries, especially in agricultural and technical entrepreneurship.

Ebie listed the deliberate intervention schemes to include Skills Training Entrepreneurship Programme (STEP), Youth Agricultural Entrepreneurship Programme (YAGEP), and Girl Child Entrepreneurship and Skill Training (GEST), introduced since 2015.

In the area of education and manpower creation, he said the state government has taken “proactive steps in establishing 19 additional technical schools and three more universities in the state to address the shortfall of admission being experienced by qualified Deltan students.”

The SSG further noted that the entrepreneurial training and empowerment programme, which is aimed at positive engagement and curbing youth restiveness, was devoid of politics, adding that the government’s commitment to transparency and accountability in its budgetary and administrative processes has earned the Okowa administration laurels locally and internationally, including the World Bank acknowledgement.

Earlier, the Commandant and team-leader, Enendo, said the team was in the state to study how they could strengthen logistic support for military operations.

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