From Maurice Okafor, Enugu.
The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) yesterday doled N100,000 loans to each of 38 persons who under went the various agricultural training schemes organised by the Directorate.
It equally commenced Sustainable Agricultural Training Scheme (SATS) for another set of 100 unemployed persons in Enugu State.
The schemes are Graduate Agricultural Empowerment Scheme, GSES, 8; Community Based Agricultural Empowerment Scheme, CBAES, 3; Agricultural Enhancement Scheme, AES, 15 and Sustainable Agricultural Development Empowerment Scheme, SADES, 12 persons.
Speaking at the flag-off/orientation of the schemes, the Directorate General of NDE, Mallam Abubakar Nuhu Fikpo, represented by the Enugu State coordinator, Mr. Donatus Azubuike, said that the Directorate was desirous of creating jobs through such empowerment programmes. He said that agriculture was the easiest and the best way to make money these days instead of seeking for paid jobs.
He stated: “If you want to be successful in life, you don’t crave for paid employment. There is a lot of money in agriculture today. There is no unemployment for people who embark on various departments of agriculture”.
Fikpo stressed hat NDE trains people on various agricultural schemes and empowers them to help themselves, pointing out that in less than five years, the beneficiaries would have been established to become prominent men in the society.
He said that though the financial empowerment might not be big but if well utilized the sky would be their limit.
Also speaking on behalf of Rural Employment Promotion, REP, Department of NDE, Dr. Sylvester Ekemhonye, said that those that venture into agriculture have nothing to regret because the gains are enormous.
Ekemhonye said that what mattered most was not the soft loan but what the beneficiaries would do with them to better their lot.
According to him, there were various agric schemes one could go into such as snail farming, horticulture, piggery, poultry among others and urged the participants to take their training serious.
“A lot of persons have undergone the training and have utilised the opportunity. Take the training serious because there is future in it for you,” he said.
