TheCable

Sunday Dare, minister of youths and sports development, says 200,000 youths have benefitted from the DEEL initiative – Digital skills acquisition, Entrepreneurship, Employability and Leadership — introduced in November 2019.

Dare said this on Thursday at the launch of a book titled ‘It’s Youth O’clock in Nigeria’, authored by Idris Ojoko, chairman of the forum of 36 states and FCT of the National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN).

In October 2020, the federal government approved funds for the training programme for 500,000 youths.

According to NAN, Dare was also honoured by the NYCN with the ‘Best Performing Minister in Nigeria’ award.

Represented by Tonye Ebitonye, his aide, the minister said the award will inspire him to do better for youth development.

“I am more inspired now than ever before to be totally committed to the federal government and the mandate of this ministry in drawing up policies, initiatives, programmes and projects that will uplift the Nigerian youths,” he said.

“One of our cardinal and most important programmes is the DEEL, an acronym for Digital Literacy and Skills Acquisition, Entrepreneurship, Employability and Leadership. Under this initiative, we have done a lot of work and close to 200,000 youths have undergone one kind of training or the other.

“Our plan from 2022 is to upscale this and get more young people to be beneficiaries of these activities.”

Also, Yahaya Bello, governor of Kogi, who was represented by Abdulkareem Asuku, his chief of staff, urged youths to aspire for elective positions in the 2023 general election.

Ahmed Wadada, chairman of Peugeot Automobile Nigeria Ltd, who was the book reviewer, said the publication explored the role of youths in nation building “and the need to restructure the leadership machinery of Nigeria for more youth participation”.

In his remarks, Ojoko called on President Muhammadu Buhari to consider more appointments for youths.