I’ll make our youths employers not job seekers, Sen. Akobundu assures constituents

Senator Austin Akobundu says rather than make the youths of Abia Central Senatorial District of Abia State, job seekers, he is determined to making them employers of labour in the society.

The Senator representing Abia Central, Senator Austin Akobundu, has told his constituents that he will not relent in his current drive towards the training and retraining of young people in his senatorial district.

This, according to him, is to ensure that youths of the zone are given the enablement to become employers of labour rather than job seekers.

The Distinguished Senator opined that with meaningful endeavours and engagements, young men and women in the district would be in a better position to serve as the vanguard of food and agricultural production, adding that it will lead them to sustainable means of livelihood.

The senator gave this assurance while flagging off a 5-Day Training Programme on farming and sewing for youths drawn from the six LGAs of Abia Central Senatorial district held in Umuahia on Monday.

He explained that the exercise he is sponsoring is in fulfilment with his campaign promises and vowed that his pledge to carry them along in the scheme of things will not be altered. This, he remarked, will remain the fulcrum of his legislative agenda.

The ebullient Abia senator who is also the Deputy Chairman, of the Senate Committee on National Planning and Economic Affairs, added that the idea of the programme is to ensure a paradigm shift from the era of supply of palliatives to the period of real and physical empowerment.

While charging the participants to take advantage of all the avenues of training and empowerment that are available to them to become employers of labour, the senator reminded them that white-collar jobs are no longer in large quantum these days.

Hear him: “We are trying to do something different. We will train you, we will empower you, and we will follow up. We will continue to find opportunities for the youths of Abia Central irrespective of whatever you are going home with after the training.

“We’ll follow through, local government by local government to see how you are faring”.

Speaking earlier, the Special Adviser to the Senator on Agriculture, Elder Henry Nwaoha charged the participants to take the training and empowerment programme very seriously, saying that the workshop serves as an opportunity for the economic upliftment of the participants.

The participants at the workshop, sponsored by Senator Akobundu, are being trained by Audo-NEPAD Nigeria, the African Union Development Agency.

Credit: SEN. AKOBUNDU MEDIA TEAM