Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha
A business mogul and Chairman Board of Directors of Anambra Motor Manufacturing Company Limited (ANAMMCO) Ltd, Chief Godwin Okeke, has called for restructuring of National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) programme to reduce the level of unemployment in the country.
He suggested that employers should be compelled by law to retain a certain number of Corps members after their service year.
Okeke, who is also the Chairman of G.U.O transportation service limited, speaking with Sunday Sun in Onitsha said he had retained many Corps members who have served in his companies as full time staff.
“For instance, If 100 people were posted to a state for serving for one year, there should be a law that the state should employ 10 percent to 15 percent of the number posted to the state to reduce the rate of unemployment. Federal Government should provide skill acquisition centres for other Corps members who may be interested to learn the skill and be self employed and create more employment,” the businessman explained.
“For any company or industry to request for Corps members to serve in their establishment, there should be a clause in the law establishing the scheme that a certain percentage would be employed after the service year, and that is the only way the scheme will be viable and the only way to give encouragement to our youths.
“The government should use the 50 percent of money used in fighting Boko Haram to set up skill acquisition centres. If we fail to do this now the crime rate will continue to increase. Today we are talking about armed robbery, kidnapping, Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen, bandits, cyber crime and other fraudulent activities carried by our youths; most of them are graduates… We must think of our tomorrow before it’s too late. If one million people are coming out from higher institutions every year what are we going to do with them? Government should provide funding or a soft loans for the graduates to set up their own businesses.
“I hear government keep on talking about billions being spent on the youths. The question is, what are the classes of those youths? You must differentiate from people who spent four, five, six, seven years in higher institutions, you cannot module everybody together.
“The police is recruiting rank and file officers and most of the applicants are graduates; the job meant for school leaves and school certificates holders are being taken by graduates and, when they start the job, they will be doing the job grudgingly without any job satisfaction.”
Okeke urged other businessmen and chief executives to think of handing over their businesses to their children and youths, stressing that most businesses collapse due to a lack of good succession planning.