Unemployment: We will engage youths through direct labour system, says Makinde

Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde on Friday said that his administration would 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.

This step, he noted, will reduce the number of unemployed youths and keep them occupied and able to make ends meet.

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The governor stated this while inspecting an ongoing road project at Jankata-Bembow-Apata Road, via Akala Express, Ibadan, saying the government needs to engage the youths, as, according to him, an idle hand is a devil’s workshop.

A statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Mr. Taiwo Adisa, indicated 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 will design a sustainable way to engage them so as to make them self-reliant.

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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.”

While inspecting the road, which has been abandoned since 2011, but was re-started by his administration, Makinde said that the road is quite strategic, adding that when it is completed, it will help to de-congest roads and ease vehicular movement in the areas.

He added that despite the fact that the contractor handling the road has not been mobilized, he has demonstrated the readiness to do the work.