Eze-Onyebuchi Chukwu, the National Youth Leader, All Progressives Grand Alliance, has advocated the creation of a separate ministry to oversee youth welfare and employment in Ebonyi state.
Chukwu is also the founder and Director-General of the Society Well-being Advocates of Nigeria.
He made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Saturday in Abuja.
He urged Governor Francis Nwifuru to consider his advice because of the teeming number of unemployed youths in Ebonyi who need skills acquisition programmes start-up funds to become self-employed and employers of labour.
Chukwu said through the ministry the state would address the challenge of street hawking by Ebonyi youths in the state and other parts of the country.
He said it would achieve that by training them on different trades and creating a data bank of Ebonyi youths with different skills.
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He said the ministry would also build market or business clusters under the same skill acquisition roof, rent the stalls at subsidised prices to enable these trained Ebonyi people to ply their trade.
Chukwu said it was unfortunate that many youths in Ebonyi state take to street hawking because they have neither skills nor finance to start their own businesses or be gainfully employed.
He said history would be kind to Nwifuru if he could provide quality education to Ebonyi youths, save them from poverty and embrace being the contributor of the largest number of street traders from South East.
He called on the governor not to relent on the great work he had started, adding that if the less privileged got lifted out of poverty under his watch that would be sufficient to Ebonyi people.
Chukwu said: “I thank you for deciding to use the N3 billion from the Federal Government to rescue poor Ebonyi street hawkers.
“That is a wonderful initiative borne of good intention. Only good leaders put the people first.
“This is the worst stigma with which we are being described, humiliated and discriminated against especially among our own brothers from the South Eastern.”
