Oyo State Governor, Engineer Seyi Makinde says his administration will address the growing youth unemployment in the state by engaging a teeming number of them through a direct labour system for public works and infrastructure.
The governor stated this while inspecting an ongoing road project at Jankata-Bembow-Apata Road, via Akala Express, Ibadan, saying the government needed to engage the youths, as, according to him, an idle hand is a devil’s workshop.
This step, he noted, would reduce the number of unemployed youths and keep them occupied and able to make ends meet.
A statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr. Taiwo Adisa, indicates that the governor made the position against the backdrop of youth restiveness in the last few days, stating that his government has heard the youths and that it will design a sustainable way to engage them so as to make them self-reliant.
He said: “Well, I will still say to the people of Oyo State that we have listened to the youths. We are designing a sustainable way to engage them, because I will continue to say that an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. We have to engage our youths. We will design means.
“One of the things we are currently considering is a direct labour agency that can absorb some of the youths, even if it is just for fixing our roads, putting our drainages in place. We just have to engage them one way or the other.
“Also, from the agriculture standpoint, we want as many of them as possible to be attracted to agribusiness.”
Iyabo Adebisi
