The Senior Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Youth and Students Matters, Hon. Nasiru Sa’idu Adhama, in an interview with Time Nigeria’s North-West Bureau Chief, ALIYU MUDI SULAIMAN, opens up on the challenges being faced by the current government at the centre, especially the issue of youth unemployment and how he plans to overcome them. Excerpts:
Can you briefly tell us some of the challenges of your office since you assumed leadership about a year ago?
All praises to Almighty Allah! I am not up to a year. In fact, I am about five months now. First and foremost let me thank the president for giving me the opportunity to serve. There are challenges but one has to face them squarely. The most important is how we are going to face them.
What are these challenges?
One of the challenges is that, the office does not have any budget and some people may not know that. Secondly, with the rate of unemployment in the country, the youths expect the office to be a saviour. Therefore, you have to think of how to create jobs for them. And the issue of making them understand the policies and reforms of the government by creating a linkage is a challenging one.
What are your plans?
My plans are visible; apart from advising the president on youth and students matters; there is how to manage their problems such as unemployment. We have designed programmes on how to provide employment in the area of skills acquisition and entrepreneurship, in agriculture, in ICT and in many other areas. Regardless of whether the office has budget or not; it is the issue of commitment. We have designed so many programmes whereby we will use social intervention funds to execute them.
There is this Textile and Garment Programme you have launched where you target 6,000 youths. . Can you shed more light on the programme?
The Textiles and Garment Empowerment programme is designed to solve the unemployment challenges in the country. It is designed to create an avenue for the skill and unskilled youths to be trained and to have all equipment and logistics to enable them start a new business. We look at the area of textile and garment because it provides the second largest employment in the country. We have many industries that are closed; therefore the government has injected intervention funds into them and will allow free market flow for them.
The programme will provide 6, 000 direct jobs and indirectly over a million jobs. It will start from farming, fabric and then processing before coming to the youth for sewing. We have created a linkage whereby the local governments and states will patronize their products. We have about 20 million students in both primary and secondary schools and you hardly see their clothes being sewn in Nigeria.
Therefore, if there is a policy which says you must patronize made in Nigerian products; their uniforms, military, paramilitary and hospitals bed sheets will be sewn in the country; by doing that, you have already created a market for them. So, the programme will not only create employment it will also boost our economy.
How do you select the youths?
We don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past whereby you provide machines and they will be sold. Therefore, we are targeting at the skilled and unskilled. In a nutshell, we are targeting all. As such, we have simple criteria whereby those with certificates are expected to provide them while those without certificates will form cooperative societies.
How will you react to the cry of some Nigerians on the current economic hardship? Are we making any headway?
Yes we are making headway! Look at how Mr. President came onboard and how he met the country economically and security wise. The president has done tremendously well in the area of security and is working hard on economy. It is an open challenge. When he came onboard the price of crude oil which was the main source of income to the country had fallen down drastically. It was a difficult situation but thank to God he has initiated the diversification of the economy in the area of agriculture and solid minerals. With these I am very confident and optimistic the challenges will go. There is hope and you know changes do not come easy.
We were in a mess for over 16 years; people do not know that Nigeria is broke and only God knows what would have happened if Nigerians did not change the previous administration.
First, we thank God for making the change possible and secondly to Nigerians for the confidence they have in Muhammadu Buhari. We know the hardship Nigerians are facing; we are feeling the pain too because we are within them. They are not smiling; the problems were not created deliberately to hurt their feelings, no! It’s because the situation warrants and Mr. President is doing everything possible to alleviate their suffering. He is trying to restore the past glories economically, politically and socially.
Finally what message do you have for the Nigerian youth?
I will thank the Nigerian youths for their understanding and patience. They have been supporting this government and they have confidence in President Muhammadu Buhari. He will not fail them.
They will never regret whether they voted for him or not. Nigerian youth have made a lot of sacrifices and their sacrifices will not be in vain.
