Hon. Francis Nwifuru Ebonyi State Governor, on Tuesday flagged off an empowerment program of 500 indigenes of the state who are hawking in different states across the country.
The program is to reduce the level of poverty in the state as well as unemployment.
The 500 persons according to the governor would be trained in different skills by the government and empowered with N2 million naira each after the training.
Governor Nwifuru flagged off the training at the state vocational college Abakaliki the state capital.
The governor urged the beneficiaries to use the opportunity to learn skills that can enhance their standard of living.
“I wear your shoes and I know where it pinches. I suffered a lot, I passed through hurdles, I passed through stages of life and I now realize that those stages I passed are because God wants to equip me.
“I made myself available for God to equip me. So, it is now a challenge to most of our leaders, and to most of our youths today to make yourselves available for God to equip you.
“It is not easy for a young man to be a bricklayer, it is not easy and I decided to make myself available. Today, you are here to learn skills, you have good skills but those skills refused to put food on your tables.
“This is why we have lots of skill development centers here and we said you should come and learn some other skills which can put food on your tables, even without much struggle you will see food on your tables.
“Some of you have what you are doing that you need only some little support, then you can grow it very well and that is why you are here.
“So, it is not by force that you learn a skill if you have what you are doing that is very much enormous to feed you. For those that don’t have what can put food on your table without struggle, bend down and learn the skill skills and get innovations and find a way of being very much enhanced so that at the of the day, you will not only get growth but you get development attach to it.
“It gives me a lot of courage after selecting people who can reason together with me to champion my charter of needs manifesto.
“I didn’t know I was going to enjoy the cooperation I am enjoying today, I didn’t know I would enjoy the support of most of our leaders.
Speaking Oguzor Offia- Nwali the State Commissioner for Commerce, Industry, and Business Development, explained that the state government was targeting 1,5000 people in the state for the empowerment program.
“The aim is to target 1,500 Ebonyians, we will take it in batches, the 1,500 beneficiaries will get N2 million each which amounts to N3 billion.
“We are taking the first batch of 500 persons which amounts to N2billion and that is what we have done today.
“We are training for a specific period and before they will leave the training ground their accounts will be credited.
“The training will last as long as they are able to lean the skills. We are not forcing them to learn particular skills; they are allowed to learn the skill they want and the beneficiaries were selected from the cities we visited”, he stated.
His Trade and Investment counterpart, Nnanna Elechi said the empowerment program was the governments’ idea to liberate the indigenes of the state who are struggling to earn government the streets of Lagos, Abuja, Onitsha, Aba, Port-Harcourt, kano and other states in the country.
Elechi said that the training and empowerment programme was in line with the peoples charter of needs manifesto of the state government.
An Abuja-based beneficiary Abraham from Ohaozara local council area thanked the state government for giving them the task to go and help others to become self-employed.
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