By Fortune Eromosele, Abuja

President of Barr. Sam Otoboeze Foundation, BSOF, Wednesday, said Nigeria cannot win the war against insecurity by brute force but through poverty alleviation schemes that will help curb insecurity in the country.

He disclosed this at the opening of the youth empowerment Poverty Alleviation to Curb Insecurity in Nigeria, PATCIN project, in Abuja, saying that 70 percent of the country’s population are youths, hence called for engaging youths with skill acquisition programs to alleviate poverty.

He noted that if the youths are not properly trained and have an enabling business environment to operate, he said many will take up arms as retaliation to the government for not having gainfully employed jobs.

Otoboeze opined that for Nigeria to successfully tackle the issue of insecurity, the nation should embrace impacting its youths so as to reduce the increasing rate of crime and terrorism.

He said: “There is overdependence on State actors to handle security issues. But as we can see on daily basis there is that multiplication of various security challenges, so it is right to say that security problems are increasing geometrically.

“This is rooted basically on hunger, unemployment, scarce means of sustenance of life, and in that kind of situation you can talk to somebody who is not hungry and he will listen to you but when hunger comes he will not listen until that is settled he may not hear.

“We are convinced that most of the people languishing in the cells of prison yards were not born to be criminals, so what do we do? Looking at the population growth and the dwindling resources to sustain the population and looking at the increase in crime, it is high time that something else is done.”

It is on this note that he(Otoboeze) opted to empower youths on acquiring various skills to fend for themselves. Part of the empowerment program he carried out was impacting the youths with knowledge and support serious minded young entrepreneurs to raise some seed grants of at least N200,000.

Speaking in the same vein, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Strategic Communications, Ogechukwu Modie, urged the federal government to support youths in engaging themselves to acquire entrepreneurial skills.

“I think it is important that we support our youths, 70 percent of the population are youths. This initiative will teach them on engaging in self employment so that they can actually start to employ other people and be employers of labour.

“My message to the youths is that youths are no longer the future, they are actually today and they are tomorrow. What I would say is they should seize every opportunity to learn, build and win anything they have put their hands to do.

“This initiative will teach them on engaging self employment, so that they can actually start to employ other people and be employers of labour.”

On her part, Organisational Manager for BSOF, Erica Okibe, said “We hope to achieve a lot, first and foremost, when you look at the security situation in Nigeria, it is a major issue and it is everybody’s problem. We realise that insecurity has taken a toll on the government, on our living and existence.

“This training is organised to help solve certain security abnormalities. We are training the youths and empowering them with skills that will help curb insecurity in Nigeria.”

The youth empowerment project was carried out in partnership with Ochima Foundation.