By DAUD OLATUNJI

No fewer than 1,200  graduates in Ogun State were empowered through the acquisition of vocational skills by the wife of the state governor, Olufunsho Amosun, in her Uplifting the Unemployed Programme.

Addressing newsmen at the Valley view, Government House, Isale Igbein, Abeokuta, the state’s first lady lamented that insecurity in the country is the direct result of unemployment among the youths.

She promised to render the needed assistance to any of the graduates that submits a business proposal to her office, saying a unit has been created in her office to ensure that proposals were looked into and actualised.

According to Amosun, “Uplifting the unemployed graduates’ programme was conceptualised so as to prevent our youths from roaming the streets in search of white collar jobs that do not exist. It was aimed at making them self-independent so as to enable them provide for their family rather than taking to immoral acts in the name of looking for money.”

The graduates who were posted to various skills acquisition centres such as small shop plastering, bead-making, manicure and pedicure, fabric beading, barbing, shoe-making, hats-making, make-up and circle and hall decoration, would be presented with certificates of participation.

Also speaking at the venue of the programme, one of the instructors, a United Kingdom- trained decor and event planning expert, Stella Nwosu, described the programme as laudable as government has saved the participants millions of naira they would have paid to acquire these skills.

Some of the participants who spoke with Vanguard Learning commended the state government’s efforts.