A university don, Prof. Egwu Egwu has said that over 70 per cent of Nigerian youths were unemployed.Egwu, former Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the Ebonyi State University (EBSU) disclosed this at a workshop organised by the Association of Communication Scholars and Professionals of Nigeria (ACSPN) on Friday at EBSU permanent site at Ngbo in Ohaukwu LGA of Ebonyi.
Egwu who is also the Special Director of the EBSU Entrepreneural Centre noted that the nation was battling with the challenge of youths unemployment adding that over 70 per cent of its citizens are youths who are unemployed; underemployed and unemployable.
The university don said that the media being a powerful tool for agenda setting has a great role to play in changing the ugly narrative.Egwu also the chairman of the event insisted that entrepreneural skills remained the key for unlocking potential for job creation alleging that governments and politicians had no room for the youths and their future.
“This is where entrepreneurship comes in; thinking outside the box, generating new ideas and making use of your own intellectual capacity to create jobs.”When you have good ideas, you don’t run to government, you run to ‘venture’ capitalists to sponsor such ideas.”Entrepreneurs are creative; inventive, innovative and ingenious people who look around the environment and create what has never existed before on earth,” Egwu said.
Earlier, Prof. Ifeyinwa Nsude, chairperson of ACSPN, Ebonyi chapter in her opening speech welcomed guests, participants and members of the association for finding time to grace the event.She said that the workshop christianed ‘ACSPN Eminent Persons Strategy Series 2022’ is the third in the series of workshops organised by the association under her leadership.According to her, the workshop themed,
‘The Media, Entrepreneurship and Job Creation for Nigerian Youths’ will highlight the role and importance of the mass media in job creation for the Nigerian youths.She said that the association invited two experts to speak on entrepreneurship and how the mass media could be used to leverage job creation and tackle problems of unemployment in the society.She said: “We have have carefully selected two seasoned experts to address us on the topic, ‘ the media, entrepreneurship and job creation for Nigerian youths’ and you will not regret attending this workshop.
“This men are not core media men but we invited them and they accepted because they understand the importance and role of the media in every society,” Nsude said.She noted that the association has been championing the campaign to unbundle mass communication as a field of study in order to build students that would fit in properly into the communication industry.
“The new initiative is all about designing a curriculum so that our products will meet up with the challenges in the industry, it’s not when we prepare them and when they get out there, they will start having issues,” she added.Newsmen reports that Prof. Chigozie Ogbu, Vice-Chancellor of the university was represented by Prof. Fortunate Oselebe, a Deputy VC.
Our correspondent also reports that the association will give awards to deserving members of the public while Dr Stephen Odoh, Commissioner for Commerce and Industry in Ebonyi and Mr Uchenna Njoku, a Lagos based lawyer will deliver lectures at the workshop.
