From Jimoh Joseph, Ado Ekiti
Ekiti State Governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose has lamented the mass unemployment challenge currently facing the country, describing it as a time bomb to which the government must pay an urgent attention.
He made the remarks yesterday while hosting the 8, 412 beneficiaries of the Federal Government N-Power scheme in the state and charged them to deliver great service to Nigeria and particularly Ekiti.
He said: “the massive unemployment rate in Nigeria is a time bomb and every government must be able to tackle this headlong. Though we are giant of Africa, we have the highest number of the unemployed.
” Our young people have taken to idleness and excessive drinking to buy time and that affects their well being but the danger of that is kidney and liver infection among others which comes after some years destroys them.
” This is why we are going to support you. I have 300 laptops but it won’t go round, it is to just support you.The Governor urged the N-Power beneficiaries to take advantage of the scheme to develop Ekiti and themselves.”
He instructed the beneficiaries to make available copies of their Curriculum Vitae to government as soon as possible, and also promised them that they would constitute majority of those that would be absorbed in a forthcoming employment exercise of about 2000 graduates into the state civil service.
” Now that you have this chance to serve, I encourage you to know that there is a promising tomorrow for you. I will create an avenue where you can submit your Curriculum Vitae as I know there are many graduates among you. I will do some employment before I leave which would be on merit.
” I assure you on this, most of the people that would be employed would be among you as this temporary employment cannot do any miracle. We still have to do our best to improve on it. If we are taking 2000 people, we will have a reasonable stretch across board.
“We will consider gender and women there will be committee among you to coordinate the exercise and ensure that your interest is represented well, ” he said.