By Aliyu DANLADI
Director-General, Federal Institute of Industrial Research, Oshodi (FIIRO) Mrs Gloria Elemo, on Thursday said there was need to encourage youths to develop entrepreneurial culture to move Nigeria forward.
Elemo made the assertion while playing host to the House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology led by Rep. Beni Lar on oversight visit to FIIRO, Lagos.
She said that youth and adult unemployment were on the increase in Nigeria, adding that a lot needs to be done to create jobs to rectify the situation.
Elemo said that what the county was experiencing today in terms of youth restiveness and insurgence, was as a result of past neglect of youths by successive governments and lack of access to gainful employment.
“In spite of the concerted efforts of government at addressing the issue of unemployment, statistical references have shown that only about 1.8 million youths enter the labour market every year.
“There is an urgent need to address this ugly trend through the provision of gainful employment for our teeming youths.
“In developing economies like Nigeria, government is the largest employer of labour, but recent employment indices indicated that government cannot carry the burden of employment alone.
“The best way to go now is to encourage our youths to develop entrepreneurial culture.
“All over the world, entrepreneurship has been acknowledged as the surest way for massive jobs creation,” she said.
Elemo said that as part of the institute’s contribution to the Federal Government goal of jobs creation, FIIRO had trained over 5000 unemployed youths within the last three years.
In her remarks, Lar, the committee Chairman, said that the essence of their visit to FIIRO was to inspect the facilities and projects as they concern the execution of its 2018 budget.
She said that the visit was also to appreciate, study and analyse the needs of FIIRO as the committee prepares for the 2019 budget of the Ministry of Science and Technology and its agencies.
“The visit will equally afford the committee the opportunity to scrutinise the agency’s spending of capital and recurrent items within the financial year.
“This is with the view to ensuring accountable management of funds as well as getting value for the money budgeted for the institute.
Other members of the committee were Rep. Yusuf Tijani, Rep. Shehu Aliyu and Rep. Eucharia Azodo, among others.
