Nasarawa govt disqualifies over 80 youths from empowerment training

No fewer than 80 applicants have been disqualified from the on-going training of the Nasarawa state youth empowerment programme.

Malam Murtala Adogi, Special Assistant on Youth Empowerment to Gov. Umaru Al-Makura, disclosed this to newsmen on Tuesday at the NYSC orientation camp, Keffi.

Adogi said some of the applicants were disqualified as being over aged, while others were nursing mothers or pregnant women.

He explained that anyone above 40 years was not qualified to participate as well as pregnant women and nursing mothers due to the rigorous training they had to undergo at the camp.

Adogi, who said the selection of the 1,470 youths was done on quota basis across the 13 local government areas of the state, however, called for the replacement of the disqualified persons from their various areas.

“The selection of the participants was done using the quota system where 100 each were selected from the 13 local government areas of the state, while special consideration was also given to certain groups, especially the physically challenged,' Adogi said.

He said that the physically challenged being incorporated were those fit into the areas of training.

“As you can see, the blind, the deaf and dumb are not here. But there are others with partial disability that can serve as Community Watchers and Sanitary Inspectors. So, we will not deny them the opportunity,' Adogi said.

The aide also noted that external influence and pressure from politicians posed a great challenge to the success of the programme.

He said the two weeks intensive training exercise would cost the state government N40 million to be spent on feeding, logistics and kitting of the participants.

The Nasarawa State Government on Jan. 26, commenced the training of over 1,400 youths as sanitary inspectors, traffic officers and community watchers.

Adogi had said that most of the trainees would be posted as sanitary inspectors in urban centres to enhance good sanitary habits, while the traffic officers would assist FRSC to decongest traffic, especially around the Karu axis of the state.

He said the community watchers would be deployed to their various localities to assist in intelligence gathering with the aim of checking the spate of insecurity in the state.

Adogi added that the trainees would be placed on a monthly allowance of N10,000, while a committee would be set up to work out their absorption into the state civil service in due course.