Era of depending on certificates is over, Minister tells youths

From Mustapha Adamu, Kano

Minister of Youth and Sports, Sunday Dare has said that the era of youths depending on certificates as the only option or key out of poverty has gone.
Speaking at a Conversational Conference, organised by the Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment, Barrister Ismail Ahmed, held in Kano yesterday, Dare said “youths need to be engaged in vocational skills training with the aim of becoming self-reliant.
He noted that youth are the major pillars in every society, hence much priority needs to be accorded to them with the aim of addressing numerous challenges of poverty and unemployment.
Dare also maintained that the Administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is working assiduously to ensure that youths key in into digital skill so that they could compete with their counterparts globally.
He said the ministry had mapped up strategies of training Nigerian youths on digital skill, saying “over five hundred thousand youths would benefit from the initiative nationwide.”
In a remark, the Deputy Governor of Kano state, Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna said embracing agriculture was the only way out of poverty.
He charged the youths to redouble efforts in keying in into agriculture with the aim of curtailing the challenges of poverty and unemployment.
DGawuna added that the state government had invested huge resources in agriculture, targeted at providing job opportunities to the teeming youths as well as curtailing unemployment challenges in the state and the nation at large.
Earlier, the convener of the event, the Special Adviser to the president on social investment, Ismail Ahmed said the aim of the gathering was to fine tune modalities of addressing challenges of poverty among youths nationwide.