Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP), says his development agenda for job creation will
target underprivileged youths and almajiri children.
Atiku spoke on Saturday at the Arewa townhall policy
dialogue in Kaduna.
While explaining how his five-point development agenda will
support the north, he said the high levels of unemployment and under-employment
in Nigeria pose serious development challenges.
He added that the increasingly large pool of youths who are unemployed and underemployed in urban areas are at risk of being entangled in various forms of violence and misconduct.
“Creating jobs and
economic opportunities for these people will be vital both for reducing the
ease of recruitment for violent groups and reducing underlying grievances that
feed conflicts,” he said.
“Our development agenda includes the implementation of a
robust job creation and entrepreneurship development programmes that will
target the youth. It is designed to target specific population groups, that is,
economically marginalised demographics, which are not served by the typical
market systems.
“In the northern states this will include the almajirai and
other under-privileged youth who have had no opportunity to acquire western-style
education.
“Our job creation
programme shall feature unique approaches to skills training. It will be a dual
system focusing on both the informal apprenticeship system and the formal
training system through ‘one-stop-shop’ styled community skills development
centres (COSDECs) with a work experience learning component.
“In both systems, training will be based on the national
occupational standards of the national skills qualification framework (NSQF),
and assessment of the trainees will be competency-based.
“The programme will seek to create up to three million
direct employment opportunities for economically-marginalised young people
every year. This will contribute significantly to our goal of lifting millions
of Nigerians out of poverty. It will also represent significant implication for
social cohesion and national security.”
The PDP presidential candidate also said poverty reduction
will be the centre-piece of his economic development agenda.
He added that his poverty reduction strategy will include
enhancing micro enterprises’ access to credit and provision of affordable
quality education from primary up to the secondary level.
“This is strategic because of the nexus between education and poverty. The majority of the poor in northern Nigeria are educated at or below the primary school level,” he said.
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