By Maureen Onochie and Jide Olusola
The Federal Government has called on Nigerians aged 15 to 35 to register alongside the Nationwide Youth Statistics Bank (NYDB), saying the exercise will guide recognize their skills, needs and locations and relate them using opportunities in the audience and confidential sectors.
The Minister of Youth Development, Comrade Ayodele Olawande, made the name on Tuesday in Abuja at the initiate of the Nationwide Youth Statistics Bank project.
Olawande said the registration would address youths in both the conventional and easygoing sectors, including those in agriculture, sports and the distinctive and technology industries. He said consistent figures on young Nigerians would guide the government bridge the gap within it and the youth humans and upgrade the planning and implementation of youth programmes.
According to him, the database would guide reply decisive questions such as “who are our young individuals?”, “where are they?”, “what can they do?” and “what opportunities do they require?” He said the initiative was a uninterrupted government programme and was not being introduced for electoral purposes.
“We moreover wish for to gain the structured and the conversational youth to shape sure that they are portion of this. Akerele said enumerators would be deployed across the 774 community government areas to register youths, including those in difficult-to-achieve communities.
“All we interest to our youth to do is to embrace the programme, go out en masse and be registered. Once they are 15, our enumerators are there to capture them,” Akerele said.
We prefer to learn the youth in sport. We request everybody. We prefer to be aware of all those in modern tech and all that, so that even when we tell some individuals look for jobs, we understand, okay, these individuals require skills,” he said.
Too speaking, the Managing Manager/Leader Executive Officer of POGMA Nigeria Restricted, the technological partner of the project, Otunba Oluyinka Akerele, said registration points had been created across instructional institutions and would be prolonged to area government areas and wards nationwide.
He said the exercise would aim youths in lesser schools, polytechnics, universities and colleges of education, as well as those in the informal sector and rural communities. “For the Nigerian youth registration, we have created cluster points in schools, polytechnics, universities, College of Education.
These are targets for the conventional sectors,” he said. It is solely when you are registered that we understand who you are, where you are, and how you can advantage from the supposed government dividend of democracy,” he said.
Akerele said the registration was accessible to Nigerians aged 15 to 35 years, in line together with the Nigerian Youth Policy. “You are addressed as a youth in Nigeria once you are 15, and once you are 35, you still stay a youth,” he said.
He added that the database would be frequently updated, alongside those below 15 captured when they achieve the eligible age. “For those that are not up to 15, that’s why you have an updating, just like you have together with INEC. We even wish for to recognize the youth in agriculture.
Source: FG launches nationwide registration for youths aged 15–35
