In its continued endeavour to partner government to address the unemployment situation among Nigerian youths, which was recently put at 80 per cent by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) in partnership with Imagine Business Services recently launched NECAPreneur in Nigeria.
According to the employer’s body, NECAPreneur is an e-solution targeted at providing easy-to-access opportunity for teeming Nigerian youths to upscale their skills and a refreshing change from the chase after white collar jobs.
The Director General of NECA, Mr. Olusegun Oshinowo, said the initiative was in tandem with NECA’s mandate to influence economic and socio-labour policies to create an army of gainfully employed youths who in turn would be employers of labour and ultimately add to national development.
“The target is getting youths to be wealth creators rather than job seekers,” he said, deploring a situation where Nigerian youths roam the streets and are available as ready tools for social ills. He said, “the NECAPreneur is particularly designed for youths and undergraduates in Nigeria and the whole idea is to create an environment where we can get our undergraduates to think entrepreneurship before they leave the university, while those who have left and are unable to get a job would be motivated to embrace entrepreneurship as well.” The NECA Director General further stated that Nigeria has an estimated population of over 185 million, of which above 50 per cent is below 30 years and over 13 per cent of this are unemployed.
NECAPreneur, according to him, “therefore, seeks to aggressively develop and make entrepreneurs of Nigerian youths by creating entrepreneurial consciousness among them. As representative of employers, we have the statistics and the jobs are simply not there, that is the truth. Demand for jobs has by far outstripped the supply and this is going to continue for a while and we would want to enjoin our youths to take their destinies in their hands by embracing entrepreneurship.”
Speaking further, he said, “the scheme is activated in tertiary institutions across Nigeria and also open to youths that are already out of school. It will not only equip them to birth and successfully run their own businesses, but also lead them into avenues for start-up capital, mentoring, internship opportunities through NECA’s network and eventual certification of successful participants.”