Uche Usim, Abuja

To reduce poverty and stem rising crimes in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the Abuja Enterprise Agency (AEA) has embarked on aggressive youth empowerment programmes cutting across a broad spectrum of the economy.

To this end, the agency recently graduated 28 trainees on carpentry skills, cabinetry and furniture making.

the training and empowerment of The number is in addition to 2,216 young men and women from all the six Area Councils in the FCT that have benefited from the empowerment programmes.

Speaking at the graduation of the latest trainees in carpentry, the Minister of the FCT, Mr Muhammad Musa Bello reiterated the need to mitigate poverty through widening the scope of sustainable economic activities especially among youth in the nation’s capital city.

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Bello particularly assured that the

FCT Administration will continue to implement policies and programmes that will improve employment through training and empowerment of youth and women, thereby exposing them to multiple streams of income in the Territory.

Bello, who was represented at the event by FCT Education Secretary, Dr. Mohammed Bala Liman, said the administration has strongly sustained the training and empowerment of the youth in its relentless effort to reduce unemployment in the FCT. He said: “although the issue of poverty is complex, as it is multi-dimensional, but AEA is trying to ensure that those youth that do not have jobs get something to do.

“And once they set up their businesses, they will begin to employ more people, and fewer people will be on the unemployment scale, that means poverty will be gradually reduced.

“Tackling poverty is such a huge and herculean task, and it’s not something that the FCTA can do in one or two years. It is a process whereby you put down policies and programmes, to ensure that in the long term poverty is drastically reduced.