Date: 2016-09-04

A Socio-Cultural Organisation in Kwara, the Ilorin Emirate Descendants Progressive Union (IEDPU), on Saturday said it would train about 500 youths in the emirate on various vocational skills.

The President of the Union, Alhaji AbdulHamid Adi, said this in Ilorin on Saturday at a Stakeholders' Forum on Security. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the security meeting was organised at the instance of the Ilorin Metro Peace and Security Initiative set up by the union.

Adi said the training was to curb restiveness among youths in the state who he said, could be easily induced to destabilise peace and security. He said the union was aware of the prevailing unemployment in the state and, therefore, decided to make some efforts to reduce the menace to the barest minimum.

He listed fashion designing, farming, fishery and hairdressing as the vocational training the youth would undergo.

The President said that all thse were geared toward discouraging the youth from lawlessness and violence. He said the union had commenced collation of forms distributed to the beneficiaries preparatory to the launching of the scheme.

He disclosed that about 40 youths were currently undergoing training at the vocational centres of National Directorate of Employment (NDE) in llorin.

Adi said the training was a collaboration between the union and the NDE. He said the initiative was a fallout of the 2014 Security Summit that was organised by the union ahead of the 2015 general elections which he said, elicited tension and uncertainty.

Adi added that the union decided to train hundreds of youth owing to expansion of Ilorin city and the influx of people from other states to the ancient city. Mr Abdullahi Yusuf, the Chairman, Ilorin Metro Peace and Security Initiative, said the meeting was summoned to avert religious unrest in some areas within Ilorin metropolis. NAN reports that the forum was attended by several eminent personalities from the llorin emirate.NAN