The Kwara State government has begun lobbying the Central Bank of Nigeria to secure 2000 slots from the Youth Innovative Entrepreneurship Development programme in the bid to cushion the effect of skyrocketed unemployment. The programme was aimed at making loan facility available for serving and former youth corps members to arrest the ugly trend of growing labour market.

Speaking with newsmen at an interactive session of a forum organised by the state government to support the apex bank in Ilorin on Wednesday, the Senior Special Assistant to the governor, Alhaji Saka Babatunde, said the programme was conceived to encourage the army of youths with entrepreneurship initiative to jump start their businesses.

The session, which was midwife by the state Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mr Mahmud Babatunde Ajeigbe, was attended by serving and ex-corps members in the state.

The governor's aide said the programme had addressed the lacuna usually associated with obtaining loan to commence entrepreneurial jobs. Babatunde told newsmen that owing to the insatiable quest of the state government to tackle unemployment and curb restiveness among the youths, a support programme would be created to make the facility hitch-free. He admonished the youths to take advantage of the programme to enroll themselves to enable them benefit from the facility.

"Essentially, Central Bank of Nigeria officially launched the programme in partnership with both Heritage Bank and NYSC. It is a targeted programme at a certain level of youth, precisely, those serving corps members and those that have completed their service year, but not more than five years ago.

"The whole concept is geared towards assisting the young entrepreneurs to starting something on their own. Most of the time, most of the young entrepreneurs are always faced with the challenge of financial backup, to start their business. But this programme has solved that problem. It is actually a loan, but it is a single digit loan meant for those youths within the age of 18 and 35 years.

"As for Kwara State government, we saw an area that we felt we can easily key in to address the issue of youth unemployment and equally address the issue of youth restiveness. That is why we decided to create support plan to ensure this programme is able to be enjoyed by majority of our youths.

"We want to create a situation where majority of our youths have what it takes to be able to start their businesses and be able to run it and sustain it. That is why the state governor has approved the creation of a business help desk in my office. And what the help desk has done is to create a support link. The essence of the support link is to ensure that youths are guided on how they can easily go about developing a strong business plan to ensure they are part of the winners of the programme.

"For the first pilot scheme, Central Bank is targeting 10,000 youths nationwide. But going forward, I was equally made to understand 200,000 youths will be benefiting from this programme every year during the life of this administration "From the 10,000 the CBN has declared, we as a state, want to see the possibility of ensuring we are able to get 2000. Because, we are aware no state in the country is doing what we have done. It is a support programme to support the CBN initiative", SSA Youth Empowerment said.

At the interactive session, the proprietor of Mount Olive Nigeria Limited, Pharmacist Ajibola enjoined the youths to be determined while venturing into entrepreneurship, saying the only antidote to the growing joblessness was to be self-employed.

The Special Adviser on Agriculture and Rural Water Support Services, Mr Anu Ibiwoye, also urged the youths at the forum to focus on agriculture as the sector was no longer an option for school dropout. He added that Nigeria was blessed with arable land and advised the youths to be acquainted with the area of value chain they intended to venture into.