The Director-General, National Directorate of Employment, Dr. Nasiru Ladan; and the Kwara State Coordinator of the agency, Mr. Adeyemo Ademola, have said the NDE will substantially address Nigeria’s high unemployment rate with the yearly allocation of N10bn.

Ladan and Ademola spoke on Friday during the opening ceremony of the NDE’s three-month agricultural development and training scheme in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital.

Ladan, who was represented by the Senior Rural Employment Promotion Officer, NDE, Mrs. Tola Olaoye, said the Sustainable Agricultural Development Training Scheme was very beneficial and timely, as it was targeted at empowering unemployed youths with passion for agriculture with skills that would turn them to commercial farmers in order to create more jobs.

He added that it would also enable them to provide adequate and dependable farm income, and also reduce commodity importation as well as conserve the nation’s external reserves.

Ladan stated that the vision of President Muhammadu Buhari for agriculture was to work with key stakeholders and build an agribusiness economy capable of delivering sustained prosperity by meeting domestic food security goals, generating exports and supporting sustainable income and job growth.

According to him, the policy thrust of the Federal Government has opened opportunities for youths to embrace agriculture as a business, earn income as well as create mass employment.

Ademola, on his part, said though the programme was initially meant for 30 beneficiaries in the state, 45 people were being trained so as to accommodate all those who indicated interest.

He stated, “If the NDE can be empowered with N10bn yearly, there will be a substantial decrease in the unemployment rate in Nigeria.

“The only constraint to financial empowerment of trainees has to do with the limitation in our budgetary allocation. But within the resources available to the NDE, we promise good usage. How I wish that the NDE will have budgetary allocation running into billions of naira, you will see that within few years, there would have been a decrease in unemployment rate.

“If you look at statistics today, it is on the increase. Unfortunately, the budgetary allocation to us did not allow us to go beyond our present level. We pray that the budgetary allocations will improve in the near future.”

The special guest of honour, Mrs. Folashade Boriowo, said the programme was one of the Federal Government’s efforts through the NDE to bring about sustainable means of livelihood and improve the living standards of the unemployed in the country.