August 7, 2024

Most past beneficiaries of youth empowerment schemes of Ajeromi-Ifelodun Local Government Area of Lagos State absconded with loans or sold their empowerment tools, the Chairman of the LG, Alhaji Fatai Ayoola has disclosed.

Speaking in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Wednesday, Ayoola said that the beneficiaries were more interested in cash at the moment than a secure future.

According to him, none of the youths and women empowered with loans in 2017 paid back, noting that the council, in 2018, decided to use equipment to empower another set, but 60 per cent of the beneficiaries sold the equipment and absconded.

Ayoola listed the equipment to include shuttle buses, motorcycles, tricycles, vulcanising machines, grinding machines, hairdryers and sewing machines.

“One person that I don’t want to mention his name got a bus. After giving him the keys, he sold the bus for N500,000 at the gate and went to a beer parlor to declare drinks for people.

He described the trend as discouraging.

“We engage our youths annually by giving them what will make them to stand on their own and turn them to entrepreneurs.

“It is not as if government has not been trying but the perception of the people as to what they really want is what we all have to sit down and ask,” he said.

He said that the decision of the council, later, to empower business owners with funding yielded 90 cent success and 10 per cent failure as some beneficiaries presented businesses not directly owned by them.

“For instance, somebody went and snapped her mother’s shop and put it forward as her own shop. We gave them N100,000 each.

“Unfortunately for her, we had sent a text message to their phones because one must have registered with us.

“On the collection day, she wanted to show us the text we sent to her, and brought out iPhone 13.

“How can someone who wants to collect N100,000 from the council own an iPhone 13. It doesn’t make sense,” Ayoola said.

Ayoola said that the council spent more than N250 million for women empowerment in July 2024.

He said that the empowerment programme was facilitated by Wema Bank and some other organisations.

“The women went home with cash ranging from N50,000 to N500,000; 100 deep freezers; 1,000 units of 3kg gas cylinders; 50 pieces of 2.9kva generating sets; 50 pieces of hair dryers; 50 pieces of sewing machines and 5,000 bags of 10kg rice,” he said.

The chairman said that it was important for youths to focus on long-term goals rather than hoping to ‘cash out’ instantly.

Ayoola hoped that the council’s partnership with WEMA Bank and others would improve the social-economic status of the women.

“Overtime, we have been thinking about how to address empowerment issues; so, we came up with a women’s summit where we linked about 3,000 women with WEMA Bank which partnered with us by giving us some funds.

“We earmarked N250 million to empower our women. To a large extent, that has really helped,” he said. (NAN)