As works continue on the new road projects across Oyo State, a Non-governmental organisation- Local Content Youth Academy, LOCYA, has commended Governor Abiola Ajimobi for the initiative.
Spokesperson of the academy, Dr. Adetunbi Saheed Ige, in a statement said the incumbent administration would forever be remembered for good whenever issues of development come up.
LOCYA is concerned with the implementation of homegrown labour, services and resources and things the country has in abundance but failed to mobilise until April, 2010 when the Content Act was passed by the National Assembly.
According to LOCYA, when the projects are completed, vehicular movement will not only be ease, the state will be opened to investment opportunities and revenue generation internally.
The statement maintained the apart from the road projects, Ajimobi has done well for the state with his style of governance, praying God to give the state somebody who would continue from wherever the governor will stop in 2019, when his tenure ends.
LOCYA, however, advised the governor to involve more local people with some aspects of the projects, adding that “Nigeria, being the most populous nation in Africa has a pool of potential talents that are untapped.
By so doing, LOCYA explained, it will help reduce unemployment and improve our economy, adding that “for long, contractor have largely considered our people for low to unskilled positions with no real possibility of advancement or long term career sustainability.”
The statement reads in part: “Nigeria has a population over 100m young people as 62 per cent of the country’s population is under 25 years of age but we have been too slow to make ample use of the human capital, which is projected to increase to 300 million people by 2030.
”Since 2010 when the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, NCDMB, was established, the act has generated US$4 billion of investments for the Nigerian economy and led to the creation of around 38,000 jobs in the country’s oil and gas industry.”
Explaining that the recently established Technical University, Tech-U, will help in improving the skills of most youth in order to meet global standard, LOCKYA reveals that “adequate formal training, which we lack in Nigeria, is a major requirement for deeveloping long term sustainable local content. There is an obvious gap between the skills taught by Nigeria’s higher institutions of learning and those needed to enter the industries that are most prevalent in Nigeria,” it concluded.
