MARKUDI/Nigeria: An entrepreneur, Mr Emmanuel Aondoakaa on Monday advised youth Corps members to strive to acquire entrepreneurial skills in order to be self-reliant instead of waiting for white-collar jobs.
Aondoakaa, the Chief Executive Officer of Own Your Enterprise Campaign (OYEC), gave the advice when he delivered a lecture held for 2021 batch ‘B’ stream 2 corps members posted to Wanune in Tarka Local Government Area of Benue.
According to him, there are no jobs in Nigeria to fall back to after the service year, as business is the key to financial independence.
“Unemployment rate is increasing among Nigerian graduates every year and the only panacea is business, so that you can be financially independent and even become employers of labour,’’ he said.
Aondoakaa pointed out that the best time to venture into business was at this period of insecurity, saying that all they needed to do was to look for the needs of their environments and venture into it.
Fielding questions from youth corps members after the lecture, he noted that the capital to kick start a business had always been the discouraging factor among young graduates.
However, he said there were many foundations such as Tony Elumelu Foundation and the likes giving grants to young entrepreneurs to encourage self-reliance in Nigeria.
He noted that applying and getting the grant might be difficult but promised to train interested persons on how to apply and get it.
Also speaking, Mrs Ann Adogah, one of the resource persons, advised the youth corps members to take the entrepreneurship development lecture seriously, as it would be “plan B’’ for self-reliance after their service year.
