News: BOI, First Bank Partner Firm to Launch Youth Empowerment Initiative

Bank of Industry (BOI) - Worried about the high level of unemployment among Nigeria’s teeming unemployed youth, the Bank of Industry (BOI), First Bank of Nigeria and After School Graduate Development Centre (AGDC) have partnered to launch ‘Youth Ignite’, an initiative geared towards empowering youths in the country.

The acting Managing Director, BOI, Mr. Waheed Olagunju, explained that the collaboration would see the institutions leverage their experiences gathered over the years to empower youths with the requisite skills required to be self-reliant and actualise their dreams.

Olagunju pointed out that ‎Nigeria youths are maginative and highly talented, maintaining that the Development Finance Institution (DFI) would continue to support, build capacity and train youths while also making available single digit and highly concensional financing‎ to support youths in Nigeria.

The acting BOI boss during ‎the launch of the scheme, said “We are coming together to help the Nigerian youth leveraging our experience. We have been in this environment for more than 58 years, First Bank 123 years and AGDC almost a decade old. We are leveraging the experience of AGDC’s experience built in Lagos ‎to see how we can help youths across the length and breadth of the country.‎”

He however stated that the bank will be reviewing its terms and conditions of its ‎youth empowerment programmes without necessary violating the guidelines of the Central Bank of Nigeria ( CBN) and credit policy of the DFI‎.

He said going forward in 2017, the bank will be carrying out a study to measure the impact it has made across board in terms of the investments in different sectors of the economy.

“We will continue to undertake any initiative that will stimulate production and the more we are able to invest in potentially viable projects that can be sustainable, the better for the country. We have two bottom lines mainly which include financial viability and developmental impact and among developmental impact are job creation, import substitution and export generation which means we finance projects that can earn foreign exchange for Nigeria,” he said.

The Chairman, AGDC, Mrs. Ibukun Awosika who also doubles as Chairman, First Bank of Nigeria, Plc, ‎said Nigeria with a 65 per cent abled young population that are out of job, should be worried about the future of the country.

‎”Right now we are at the point of building the future of the nation and when you have an environment where 65 per cent of your able bodied young people ‎or where a large part of your population which is the able bodied young people are out of work, you should not be able to sleep. We need to think of growing businesses in the future, so our commitment to this initiative is first to support nation building, support transforming the lives of that is so critical to our nation building, build new generation of businesses that will be our customers in the future,” she said.

Source: ThisDay