Obi Adim, Nigeria’s special assistant to the president on job creation, has said the government seeks to add one million jobs annually, with particular emphasis on the ICT sector and entrepreneurs.
He said through the initiative, the government seeks to tackle head-on the challenge of unemployment.
“We are looking at creating about one million jobs a year. We have various sectors we are looking at such as Information and Communication Technology, entrepreneurship, and skills acquisition,” Adim said.
Nigeria currently has a 24 per cent rate of unemployment according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
Explaining the new initiative, senior special assistant on job creation, Josephine Washima, said the initiative is enjoying the support of various stakeholders.
She it was different from the government’s Youth Enterprise with Innovation Programme (YouWIN).
“The YouWin programme is a business competition, which is online-based and this is totally different from the Integrated Youth Empowerment Initiative. Our initiative is not a competition but it will empower the youth at the end of the day if properly implemented,” she said.
