The National Youth Council of Nigeria, (NYCN), has warned against the diversion of the N75 billion Nigerian Youth Investment Fund, to be otherwise known as the Youth Bank.
President of NYCN, Solomon Adodo, in a statement issued in Abuja on Thursday, said “care must be taken to ensure that funds made available for this project are not diverted by selfish elements who are bent on robbing Nigerian youths of their birthrights and politicising every initiative for personal enrichment”, the statement added.
NYCN said the approval of N75 billion for the establishment of the fund has further confirmed its confidence that President Muhammad Buhari administration is committed to ensuring self-actualisation of the youths.
NYCN explained that the initiative will not only energise the teaming number of youth with brilliant ideas but also steer the economic growth of the country.
ALSO READ: Fayemi speaks from isolation, says COVID-19 is real
It noted: “Once again, President Muhammadu Buhari has proven that he is a leader that has the interest of the young population at heart. The coming of his administration has not left anyone in doubt of its vision for the participation of a productive and vibrant youth in national development.
“To ensure that youths are gainfully engaged, the administration introduced several economic intervention programmes such as anchor borrowers scheme, N-Power to mention a few. All these have helped in reducing the volume of youths that were before now idling about.
“In the political sphere too, the president demonstrated his desire for the youths to take leadership roles by assenting to the Not Too Young to Run Bill into law as well as engaged a number of youths in his administration”, the youth body noted.
“NYCN notes with satisfaction similar funds made available by successive governments such as the Sure-P fund and the Agri-Business/Small and Medium Enterprise Investment Scheme as well as other youth-friendly schemes which had the capacity to put an end to the unemployment situation in the country but were poorly implemented.”
Though the minister earlier hinted that the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development and other relevant ministries, departments and Agencies (MDAs) would work out the modalities for its funding, the NYCN pledged to follow through to ensure that legible youths benefit from the initiative.
The Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr Sunday Dare, had while disclosing the approval of the fund by the Federal Executive Council in Abuja on Wednesday said the fund would be created to support enterprises, ideas and innovations evolved by about 68 million Nigerian youths, aged between 18 and 35.
According to to the minister, the ‘youth bank’ will help to facilitate the acquisition of credit facilities to fund ideas and innovations that have the potential to create wealth and employment as well as develop the capacity of the Nigerian youth.
and then