Mobilizing the Youth for Self-reliance: An Assessment of Self-help Initiatives

Mobilizing the Youth for Self-reliance: An Assessment of Self-help Initiatives

CHAPTER ONE

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Self-reliance in a general sense is what actually promotes productivity and other economic activities which obviously lead to the development of a country. From time immemorial people have always engaged in different activities such as farming, fishing, hunting, among others, in order to satisfy their basic needs and enhance their social mobility from one class to another.

Therefore, the idea of self-reliance lays heavily on youth empowerment by training of mind and body of the youth for proper integration into society and for positive development. Umar Dantani states that “the Nigerian government in collaboration with private organizations should intensify effort to provide gainful employment to the army of unemployment youth, this can be done through the establishment of micro fiancé schemes that assist the youth to be self-employed if this is achieved, redundancy among the youth would be reduced to the barest minimum”.

Ibrahim Risikat Stated that During the Obasanjo administration the Federal Government of Nigeria establishes an economic institution known as the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NPEP). This institution was mandated to give the capacity building to intended youths to be self-reliant, provide loan facilities to small and large scale enterprises as well as monitor the progress of the loan facilities granted to small and large scale enterprises. To ensure wealth creation among youth under the National Poverty Eradication Programme, graduates were recruited and posted to various Ministries and parastatals to learn public service activities, these graduates were paid #20,000 Monthly, in addition, capacity building and training were conducted under the auspices of attachment to a particular workshop in accordance to what the youth indicated, these activities range from welding to balkanizing, dying e.t.c. In this perspective, #5000 was given to each of the trainees and release at the expected time allocated for the training, and also youth were granted #5000 under no capacity training.

Hajiya Salamatu Husain Suleiman stated that “youth (boys and girls) this category need to receive training on a variety of skills in trades and profession such as tailoring, computer training, technical and commercial enterprises, such as buying, selling and farming e.t.c, which will make them be self-reliance”3 Therefore, she added that, in addition to skills acquisition, training and empowerment programmes, educational development is also very critical.

Ibrahim Risikat suggested, however, that “Small scale enterprises have been also identified as the essential support and engine for nations economic development, it is a lubricant for employment generation, poverty reduction and technological development” Therefore, given the vital and salutary roles and contribution which enterprises play in the nations economic development, the government at various levels in Nigeria have roll-out-different entrepreneurial programmes aimed at reducing the incessant unemployment

phenomenon and at the same time entrenched the spirit of self-employed philosophy in our youth instead of looking for white-collar jobs that are not there.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM

The research project focuses on mobilizing the youth for self-reliance, by appraising the self-helps initiatives in Suru local government area, within the period of 2011-2015.

There is a general consensus from past research that, youth fell excluded from participation in the development process, obviously lack of education and unemployment has resulted in an increase in the involvement of youth in various anti-social activities and offences, such as assaults, murder, stealing, armed robbery, sex offences, unlawful possession of arms e.t.c.

Every year the government at the three tiers through budgetary allocation, policies and pronouncement have signified interest and acknowledged the crucial rules of the small scale enterprises sub-sector of the economy and hence

made policies to boost the participation of the unemployed youth. In spite of the essential role of government by introducing programmes and policies as an alternative way of reducing poverty level. Among unemployed youth in the country, the policies and programmes introduced by the government have not been fully utilized by many unemployed graduates and the effect has been manifested in a high level of crime rate.

Therefore, specifically, the study would focus on two major organizations which were established in the area of study with a view to mobilizing the youths for self-reliance by getting them involved in self-help projects. There are Lauwali foundation and Garima Group.

Lauwali foundation was established in 2011 by senator Ibrahim Bawa Kamba and the activities involved in the foundation include electrical wiring, soap making and tailoring e.t.c. while Garima group deployed the teaming number of unemployed youth to various business centres, where they were taught a number of self-reliance skills.

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The study is based on the following objective objectives.

i) To examine the rules of government and private enterprises in youth mobilization.

ii) To analyse ways in which youth are being mobilized for self-reliance.

iii) To identify the challenges encountered in the process of youth mobilization.

iv) To appraise the prospect for youth self-reliance.

1.4 JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY

Youth empowerment has a significant role to play in the economic development of Nigeria. In any community youth, facilitate the development of a given society in the sense that, their age category is accompanied by physical, emotional and cognitive development that provide them, the opportunity to contribute their own quota towards the growth and development of their country.

As Dantani stated, “youth development is the training of mind and body of the youth for proper integration into the

society and for positive development, it involves the provision of infrastructure, creation of institution and processes that will enhance the development of the youth”.5 Government has over the year strived to create a favourable condition for youth development but the effort put in place are commensurate with the enormous problem confronting youth development. This suggests, however, that it is. reasonable to work on the assumption that youth” empowerment is compatible with effective economic development however, that it is reasonable to work on the assumption that youth empowerment.

However, this study will specifically focus on two organizations that were established in Suru local government, which aims at empowering youth in such a way that, they could be self-reliant, and these are Lauwali foundation and the Garima group.

Lauwah foundation which was established in 2011 by senator Ibrahim Bawa Kamba, engage youth to participate in various training activities which include, soap making, tailoring electric wiring e,t,c while on the other hand, Garima group also provides alternative for business transaction for the youth, in which filling station supermarket, telecommunication centres e.t.c were established and youth were recruited to serve at such centres, some as managers same as workers while some as a maintenance clerk and they were paid on a monthly basis.

1.5 SCOPE AND LIMITATION

The research would primarily focus on youth mobilization for self-reliance and how it affects the development process in Suru local government area, within the period 2011-2014.

Specifically, the study would be concerned with two organizations in the area of study, and these are Lauwal foundation and the Garima Group, which was aims at providing employment opportunities to the youth.

1.6 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

The research would be guided by the following assumption.

i) The roles played by government and private enterprises toward the mobilization process could lead to the achievement of self-reliance.

ii) There is substantial progress in the self-reliance effort in Suru Local Government.

iii) Self-reliance could be achieved through the self-help initiatives in Suru local government.

1.7 DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS

Certain basic concepts are defined below:

Youth: There exist deferent explanations with regard to the concept of youth as an age category, the United Nations (2007), argued that “any person between the age of 15 and 24 is a youth”6 Although, the United Nations which is one of the Institution for global governance has specified age category for youth different from African countries.

Entrepreneurs: Is an Individual who established and manages a business for the principal purpose of profit and growth.

Enterprises: it is the business organization that is formed and which provides goods and services, create jobs and contribute to national income, export and overall economic development.

1.8 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The research is base on various sources such as primary and secondary sources of data. Data from the field will be collected through interviews, observation and survey e.t.c Oral interviews will be conducted with youths who are the beneficiaries of self-help initiatives the founders and managers of Lauwali foundation and Garima group will also be interviewed to collect reliable data. Five (5) people from each foundation will be interviewed in order to make the work more reliable.

Therefore, another method of data collection is a secondary source, in which data is been collected through consulting related textbooks published and unpublished, Journal, document where necessary, internet and some of this materials could be source in Kebbi state Library in Birnin

Kebbi, Abdullahi Fodio library University in University of Usmanu Danfodiyo Sokoto, Using computer wordless also in UDUnet and library in which reliable data is bee collected.

Therefore, this research works basically designed into five chapters, chapter one, which is the introductory part of the work, consist of the background of the study research problem, objectives of the study, justification for the study, scope and limitation of the study, Research hypotheses, Definition of the concepts, research methodology.

Chapter two consists of a literature review, chapter three also consists of the background of the area of study, land people and their economic activities. Chapter four is data presentation and analysis. Chapter five consists of a summary and conclusion.

References

1) Umar Dantani: Youth and political violence consequences on electoral Democracy in Nigeria, Department of political science, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto P.3-5

2) Hajiya Salamatu Husain Suleiman: Alkali Hussaini Foundation: A Worthy venture, Kebbi Mobilizer, A quarterly production of National Orientation Agency (NOA) Kebbi state Dec. 2013.

3) Ibrahim Risikat: Small scale enterprises and youth

empowerment: A case study of selected enterprises in Sokoto metropolis. A research work submitted to the Department of Business administration, U.D.U Sokoto (2014)P.7.

4) Ibid P.20-23

5) Ibid P.4

6) United Nation: World Youth report 2007, Young people’s transition to Adulthood, progress and challenges, NewYork: UN (2007).