The Ekiti State Commissioner for Youth Development, Hon. Gold Adesola Adedayo, has disclosed that Governor Biodun Oyebanji, has kickstarted aggressive execution of his youth-friendly roadmap to defeat the cankerworms of spiraling joblessness among youth in the state .
Hon. Adedayo added that the thousands of jobs offer in the civil service, the youth conditional cash grants, reformation of the sports sector, the artisan registration/support programme and promotion of agribusiness, were some of the programmes of government targeted at empowering the youth population.
The commissioner divulged these information in Ado Ekiti, on Friday, while being inducted as an Ambassador and garlanded with the prestigious honour of 2023 “Integrity Stewardship Award”, by Centre for Peace and Self Value-reorientation at his office, in Ado Ekiti, the state capital.
Addressing the Centre’s leaders, Hon Adedayo, described Oyebanji as a youth- friendly and generally progressive leader, who always thinks about the future of the state that rests heavily on the shoulders of the youth population.
“Go round Ekiti today and see how Mr Governor is executing programmes that are opening up Ekiti for investment. The governor is currently on the tour of the United States of America where he held series of meetings with investors in Dallas. This was a follow up to the earlier journey to Kigali in Rwanda geared towards expanding our tourism scope.
“The current government knew the value of infrastructures to investment and a lot of concentrations are on that area. The Ekiti State Ring Road Phase 1, the flyover in Ado Ekiti and many ongoing intra and inter city road projects are some of the projects being executed to unveil the state’s huge potentials in agriculture, tourism, education and other sectors.
“In the area of youth, many appointees of Governor Oyebanji were appointed on account of their vitality and youthful age. I am a beneficiary of this gesture. Youth employment and job creation is a whole pillar in the policy thrust of this administration. This underscores their relevance in the scheme of things.
“As of now, about 20,000 have been employed into both public and private sectors of the economy. What the government was focusing on was spurring the inspiration of self employment in farming, tying and dying like the Adire Hub, promoting vocational and entrepreneurial spirits”.
Hon. Adedayo saluted the Centre for counting him worthy of the honour, saying value reorientation among youths forms part of the cardinal objectives of the Oyebanji-led government.
“Governor Oyebanji’s has strong fidelity in the credo of honour and integrity and we are inculcating these in our youth. We want to have a set of youth that can value hardwork, honesty, honour and self worth to make our dear state proud among the comity of states”.
Justifying the rationale behind the award conferment on Hon Adedayo, the Executive Director of the Centre, Mr. Oyibo Abubakar, said an independent research conducted by the body in southwest vividly revealed that the Ministry of Youth in Ekiti was outstanding in terms of delivery.
Mr. Abubakar said: “From our confidential independent assessment exercise conducted on MDA’s in Southwest of Nigeria, ministry of youths, Ekiti state under his stewardship came out very outstanding in the course of the exercise.
“We also gathered with great delight in terms of your performance such as display of ethical leadership, developmental policy performance, Public accessibility, servicom compliance, commitment to state Government transformation agenda, attitude against corruption and obedient to the rule of law.
“Having satisfied the report of the said assessment exercise conducted using opinion polls, questionnaires, interviews with informants and opinion sampling, field assessments, report writings, comments and votes on social media on your activities and performance, we are left with no option than proclaiming and inducting you as our “Service Ambassador”.
“We also present you with this “Certificate of integrity and Stewardship” for scoring 95% cumulatively in 10 sectors of our assessments. You are hereby declared an outstanding leader in service”, the Centre stated.