The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Thursday in Abuja flagged
off the pilot phase of the Youth Entrepreneurship Development Programme (YEDP)
aimed at empowering 1,500 youths with a total of N2.5 billion loan.
The CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele in his remarks said that
the inability of Nigerian youths to access funding for businesses had been the
bane of entrepreneurship.
Emefiele said that entrepreneurship among Nigerian youths had
been hindered by low capacity and funding which has made many of them opt for
white collar jobs which are not even available.
“ These challenges have continually made many youths to jettison
their laudable ideas in pursuit of white collar jobs.
“Their inability to access funding has been the bane of
developing the ideas of many educated and enterprising youths in Nigeria.’’
He said that the programme would address the problem of high and
rising youth unemployment and restiveness.
While stressing that it was a loan that would be paid back and
not a grant, he said that the single digit interest rate of the loan was to
allow the youths to grow their businesses without much ado.
He admonished the beneficiaries to be of good character by
repaying the loan when due as the success of the scheme depends solely on this
first phase.
“We do not anticipate that they would not pay, we have as collateral
their NYSC and Degree certificates and we know that our youths know the
importance of their certificates.
“I do not think that somebody who has gone to the higher
institution for those number of years to gain gainful employment for a gainful
life will abandon those certificates because he wants to collect loan and not
pay back.
“As far as I’m concerned I have not looked at the equation of
them not re-paying so I want to enjoin everybody who accessed this loan to
please pay.’’
The YEDP is aimed at harnessing the latent entrepreneurial
spirit among the teeming youths by providing timely and affordable loans to
implement their business ideas.
It is also serving as a training sponsored by the CBN for
National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) members in collaboration with Heritage Bank.
It targets youths between the age of 18 and 35 to create one
million direct jobs in the productive sectors of the economy within four years.
Some of the qualified business sectors are agro-allied, food
processing and preservation, arts and crafts, construction support and
Information and Communication Technology (ICT).
The Director General, NYSC , Brig.-Gen. Sule Kazaure said that
the programme was a milestone for the NYSC because it was in line with the its
Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) programme.
He said under the SAED scheme, over 600,000 corps members had
been trained in various entrepreneurship programmes but lacked funding to
establish their own businesses.
He urged the corps members to take the programme seriously
saying their future and the nation’s may depend on it.
“I urge all corps members, irrespective of their course
disciplines, to key into the opportunities provided by these collaborations and
become budding entrepreneurs through skill acquisition, self employment, wealth
creation and employment generation.’’
The Managing Director, Heritage Bank, Mr Ifie Sekibo told the
youths that their success was important as it might mean that a path to
creating a society that is worth our while was being charted.
He urged them to exhibit a flawless character and be tenacious
in the pursuit of their goals.
“The spirit of entrepreneurship is not just in word but in the
character you exhibit and the tenacity you bring to bear, the ability to follow
your dreams despite the challenges.
“If you don’t bring your character to the table this experiment
will not succeed. A tenacious spirit, a never say die spirit, a can do
spirit.’’
Mr Success Obi, one of the applicants who spoke on behalf of
others, thanked the three organisations for providing such employment
opportunity for the teeming Nigerian youths.
He assured that if granted the loan they would do their best to
create employment opportunity for themselves ourselves and fellow youth and pay
back the loan when stipulated.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the flag-off was
done simultaneously in Plateau, Katsina, Enugu, Akwa-Ibom, Osun and Lagos
states and Abuja.
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