By Richard Akintade, Osogbo
No fewer than 850 unemployed graduates of tertiary institutions are currently being trained by the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) on Enterprise and Finance Counseling Clinic.
Participants cut across 17 southern states of Nigeria, pegged at 50 participants per state.
The NDE Director General, Mallam Abubakar Nuhu Fikpo, stated this in Osogbo, Osun State capital while speaking through the NDE State Coordinator Mr Julius Fakunle at the flag off of a 5-day training programme in organised by the NDE in the state.
Mallam Fikpo said the objectives of the training programme are to sensitize participants to the realities of the Nigeria labour market; encourage them to opt for self employment as a career; to counsel them to choose the type of business that fits their interest, skills and competencies, as well as to link the participants with relevant stakeholders, having the financial wherewithal to assist them in funding their viable business enterprise, among others.
The NDE boss, assured the participants, who are expected to have existing businesses “no matter, how small”, and those that are not doing anything at all, that regardless of the challenges experienced in the business environment at the moment, through innovation and creativity, they would navigate their way into profitability.
The DG, also gave assurances that the NDE in collaboration with Financial Institutions would be willing to expose the participants to available funding opportunities in the financial institutions, and how to access them.
He said at the end of the training they are expected to be well equipped to present a bankable feasibility report or business enhancement proposals.
Mallam Fikpo, while enjoining them to take the training serious, also used the occasion to call on all other category of unemployed persons to tap into a window of opportunities provided by the NDE to make them self employed and self reliant, thereby contributing their quotas to the nation’s economy.
He charged the participants not to feel disillusioned about the current challenges in the country “as the future holds a brighter hope for them” and that they should stop complaining, and make the best of the opportunity offered by the current situation.
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