February 20, 2018

Mr Noble Adaelu, the President, Concerned Youths Empowerment Association of Nigeria (CYEAN), an NGO, says value re-orientation of youths is key to the socio-economic development of the country.

Adaelu said this during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja.

“The problems confronting the country can only be addressed when the minds and perception of youths and the younger generation is disabused from seeing money as an end always.

“People are just chasing money without wanting to work for it, especially the youths; they just want quick money.

“They go to a programme, you give them starter packs they will not make use of it rather they will sell it.

“If you announce today that FCT is organising a training programme that anyone coming will receive N100,000 as empowerment package before you reach there, the whole place will be filled.

“You find out that half of the people you trained will not pay attention to what you are trying to impact, they are interested in taking that money and going home to spend it.

“That is what is affecting productivity in the country,’’ he said.

Adaelu said often times, people he trained in his Agro Processing Entrepreneurship Education Scheme when asked to bring the sample of what they had been trained on; they usually failed to do so.

He said some trainees when they were given starter packs to start up their businesses, end up selling them off.

“So re-orientation matters most and because of this before we start training, we give them talks on values and how to conduct themselves that they are not coming for money.

“Some people we trained on production of tomato paste, we bought the tomato paste containers, after training them and we asked if they were ready to produce, only few will agree they are ready to produce.

“Many of them said they want loans, so the seriousness of people matters, most people can pretend then after the training they will just take their start-up packs and sell it later.

“The re-orientation should not be left for us the youths associations alone, religious organisations have the responsibility to take it up, from church to church from mosque to mosque.

“We have lost that societal value and it is a very big issue that is supposed to be addressed by all and sundry even the National Orientation Agency as a Federal Government organ, ‘’ Adaelu said.

The aim of the association is to reduce youth restiveness and unemployment through the promotion of indigenous technology.