Group urges FG to provide soft loans for youths to tackle unemployment

The Nigeria Diaspora Network (NDN) urged the federal government to provide low-rate loans and farm inputs to young people.

NDN’s chief financial officer, Samuel Iyapo, made the call in a statement in Abuja.

He attributes one of the reasons for youth unemployment to urban migration.

According to him, everyone moves to cities in search of white-collar jobs and because cities cannot cope with the number of people migrating, there is a population explosion in urban centres.

“To reverse this trend, I will propose a restructuring of the economy by giving local authorities autonomy to enable them to generate more income and create jobs.

“In return, the councils should involve young people by introducing school-to-land programs,” he said.

Iyapo said that although the government led by President Muhammadu Buhari is making efforts to diversify the economy, the government should do more by giving oversight

“Monitored loan in the sense that such a loan will be intended for the purpose for which the loan is granted.

“The economy should be diversified, moving from over-reliance on the oil sector to agriculture.

“There should be programs by local governments allocating land for the use and provision of high yielding crops.

“The government should also offer free rental of tractors and other farm implements to help young farmers,” he said.

He said everyone should be blamed for the challenge facing the nation.

“There is enough blame for everyone. All of us, as citizens, have flaws and cannot exempt ourselves from the problem.

“We all encourage corruption in one way or another.

“The reactions of the population to the prosecution of corrupt officials have been mutilated; it is very difficult to prosecute a corrupt Yoruba due to the reaction of his people who would think he is being sued for being Yoruba.

“The same goes for the Igbos and the Hausa / Fulani. We are all guilty of this, ”he said. (NAN)