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Edo State Government has so far empowered over one hundred and fifty thousand youths - Damian Lawani
Cautions youth against get-rich-quick syndrome
Solicits more of private sector investment in sports development
Hon. Damian Lawani
Edo State Government has so far trained over one hundred and fifty thousand youths in various vocations and gave them starter packs, to start a living.
The commissioner for Youths and Special duties in the state, Hon. Damian Lawani made this known in Benin City while speaking with newsmen on the activities of his ministry geared towards sports development and youth empowerments.
He, however, expressed displeasure over the attitude of some of those trained due to their inabilities to carry on with their visions as a result of quest for quick riches.
“I can tell you very clearly in non-controvertible term that there were people we rescued from Libya, we gave them training, we gave them starter packs, they add money to the money we gave to them after the training and went back to Libya. Is that not witchcraft on your own”, he stated.
Hon. Lawani therefore cautioned youths against the quest for quick riches and urged them to be creative and dedicated to work, so as to make lasting wealth.
The commissioner emphasized that the youths needed to have orientation that it is not just going abroad that would give them a living.
According to him, there is need to re-orientate our youth so that they can buy into the idea of starting small and growing big.
The Edo Youths and Special Duties commissioner further stated that the state government was raising awareness in all sporting activities with the aim of discovering talents outside football and ensure that a greater number of youths were meaningfully engaged.
In his words, “Most of our sporting activities dwelled mainly on football, but there are many other sporting activities that are not even publicized which also have a way of giving the youth serious empowerment. Talk of basketball, Volleyball, Karating, Judo, Javelin, Table Tennis, Long Tennis and many others. But you can see that one particular sport has dwarfed all those other ones that I have mentioned; but our mission is to ensure that there is orientation about sporting activities generally to enable as many youths as possible to get involved. Because there are youths that are going to be very good in all these other sports that I have mentioned and there youths that are going to be good in football. But if the youths that are good in other sports are not encouraged, it means it is only football you would be hearing of. But when other sports are also encouraged, a large number of youths would have been taken care of; therefore they would have been taken off the streets”.
On the Edo 2020 National Sports Festival that was put on hold as a result of the outbreak of covid-19, Hon. Lawani assured that the sports festival would still hold after adequate arrangement has been developed in line with the protocols against the spread of corona virus.
Hon. Lawani expressed the view that sports has become a private-sector-driven entity globally and solicited more involvement of the private sector in sports development in Nigeria.
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