SENATOR DECRIES UNLAWFUL POSSESSION OF ARMS BY YOUTHS

The Senator representing Ogun West Senatorial District, Akin Odunsi has frowned at the proliferation of arms among youths in several parts of the country. He said a nationwide amnesty programme would help in mopping up the unlicensed guns in the hands of youths in the society, which had brought a regime of fear and insecurity through reports of gun-shooting on the streets and neighbourhoods.

Odunsi expressed this concern yesterday at the flag off ceremony of the Youth/Women Empowerment Scheme for the people of his constituency at the Entrepreneurship Development Centre (EDC), Lagos . The event, which began with 30 young graduates for the first batch, would be anchored by the EDC, Lagos .

On interrogation by journalists, the Senator said it would be premature to give details of the intended legislative action to be taken against gun proliferation, but he cited the success of the amnesty programme in the Niger Delta as a positive indication that other youths could be persuaded to surrender their guns.

Odunsi called on the government to overhaul the present education curriculum, with its appalling deficiency in entrepreneurship development. He called for the introduction of leadership programmes in the educational syllabus from primary school to the tertiary level to fire the entrepreneurship ingenuity of young people towards self-employment.

'This sort of instruction will inculcate in the students from an early stage in life the qualities required of them, as well as train them for positions of responsibility whether in the formal or informal sectors of the economy,' he said.

The Senator said he introduced the programme to address unemployment and youth restiveness in the area. According to him, 'some political charlatans' in Ogun West Senatorial District have turned young men and women in the area to tools of violence for their political misadventure.

The programme, according to him, would empower 100 young graduates in the first year to become future entrepreneurs. He said on completion of the training, participants could obtain non-collaterised loans to the tune of N5million, with single interest digit interest rate and three-year repayment plan.