SMEDAN, Sokoto train 100 youths on skills acquisition

The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria, SMEDAN and the Sokoto State Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency, SOSMEDA, have organised a skills acquisition training programme for 100 youths in the state on  entrepreneurship. 

The  three-day programme  was organised as part of efforts  to provide the youth with skills on business development and establishment with a view to reducing youths unemployment in the state.
Speaking while declaring opening the training in Sokoto last week, the Director-General of SMEDAN, Dr Dikko Radda, lamented that Nigeria was now unacceptably faced with large-scale youth unemployment.
Radda, who was represented by the Director, Engineering Technology and Infrastructure of the agency, Mr Abu Ozigi, however, declared that the present administration was committed to combating the menace with all the seriousness it deserved by providing the  nation’s youths with the needed skills to be self reliant.
According to him, “SMEDAN is now set to reposition itself for a focused delivery of business development services to micro, small and medium enterprises in the country, with particular emphasis on micro enterprises.
“SMEDAN is desirous that most of the enterprises in the micro category, which currently constitutes 99.8 per cent of MSMEs, grow to small and subsequently, medium enterprises. In this way, more jobs will be created  and contribution to the Gross Domestic Product- GDP, will  be enhanced”, he stated .
The SMEDAN boss, who  pointed out  that the two agencies were working out a sustainable funding mechanism for the beneficiaries of the training programme, promised that  steps would be taken to upscale the gesture, while access to information on investments would be boosted.
He further disclosed that SMEDAN and Sokoto State government had commenced discussions on the re-development of the Sokoto Industrial Development Centre (IDC) as part of efforts to sustain the programme in the state.
In her remarks, the Director-General, SOSMEDA, Hajiya Aishatu Hassan, commended the state Governor, Honourable  Aminu Tambuwal, for according special priority and recognition to micro, small and medium enterprises in the state since assumption of office .
According to her, such commendable efforts by the state government culminated in the recent establishment of the agency, while it provides sustainable moral and financial support to its growing, the training is aimed at further reducing poverty and unemployment in the state, while boosting the economy of the state”.
Also speaking, the state Commissioner for Commerce, Industry and Tourism, Alhaji Aminu Bello, stated that the state government was taking plausible steps to restore the lost glory of businesses in the state.