In its continued endeavour to join hands with Government to address the time bomb of high unemployment among Nigerian youths which was recently put at 80% by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) in partnership with Imagine Business Services recently launched NECAPreneur in Nigeria.
NECAPreneur is an e-solution targeted at providing an easy-to-access opportunity for the teeming Nigerian youths to upscale their skills and a refreshing change from the chase after white collar jobs by Nigerian Youths.
Speaking in Lagos, the Director General of NECA, Mr. Olusegun Oshinowo remarked that: “the initiative in is 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”.
Mr. Oshinowo particularly deplored a situation where our teeming youths are roaming the streets and 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 D.G. further observed that “Nigeria has a population estimated over 185 million, above 50% of which is below 30 years, and over 13% of this are unemployed”. NECAPreneur, according to him, “therefore, seeks to aggressively develop and make entrepreneurs of Nigerian youths by creating entrepreneurial consciousness among the youths. 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 for jobs 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 averred that: “The scheme is activated in tertiary institutions across Nigeria and also opened to the teeming 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”.
