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The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, says the current hardship was not the making of the present administration.
She, however, restated commitment to end the hardship.
The minister spoke on Tuesday in Abuja at the Special Town Hall Meeting for the Youths held at the Presidential Villa.
Mohammed said government “is unrelenting in its efforts to ease the hardship in the land, especially youth unemployment.’’
He stressed that the hardship was “brought about by years of poor or lack of planning, profligacy, mismanagement of funds, massive corruption and lack of investment in social programmes.’’
To move the nation out of the situation, he solicited the “undiluted support’’ of the people particularly the youths.
The minister said that the Federal Government’s massive investment in social programmes will help accelerate the process of job creation, especially for the youths.
He said that the government placed premium on youth empowerment, youth development and youth engagement, hence the decision to organise the town hall meeting specifically for them.
He said the administration was investing massively in the Social Investment Programmes that would benefit the youths.
He listed the programmes as the N-Power Volunteer Scheme and the N-Power Job Creation Programme, among others that wouldprovide loans for traders and artisans.
Mohammed added that the home-grown school feeding programme, the conditional cash transfers to the most vulnerable members of the society and the family homes fund, a social housing scheme, were also for youths.
He said his ministry was leveraging on the creative industry, which is youth-driven, to create
jobs and unleash the huge potentials of the youths.
The minister said that the imminent transition from analogue to digital broadcasting would create one million jobs in three years, with most of those jobs going to the youths.
