The Honourable Minister of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs, Senator George Akume fnim has restated the determination of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari to implement a strategy for harnessing local content for employment generation towards backward integration of the economy.
Akume stated this on the occasion of the flag-off of training for 100 Almajiri’s and other street youths on conversion of plastic to interlocking tiles in Kaduna. According to the Honourable Minister, the training was in fulfillment of the President’s promise on June 12, 2019, during the democracy day celebration to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in ten years.
He further stated that to actualize this every Ministry was asked to design and implement a strategy to improve the livelihoods of Nigerians.
His words, “Today therefore, marks a special day for the ministry of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs which has designed this designed and is implementing a strategy for harnessing local content for employment generation towards backward integration of the economy. It is a great day for the street youths and Nigeria at large as partner with Davy Dara Global limited in association with Development Association for Renewable Energy DARE to kill many birds with one stone towards fulfilling Mr. President Promise”.
This training which is one of our FLAGSHIP PROJECTS shall take advantage of local content climate change adaptation technologies to achieve: Capacity building of street youths, provision of livelihood and Empowerment of same Removal of plastic wastes from the environment Reduction in availability of manpower for criminal recruitment
“The UNDP took the issue of plastic wastes menace headlong when they declared the theme for 2018 World Environment Day to be “Beat Plastic Pollution” this became necessary as plastic wastes were fast taking over our environment causing death of aquatic lives, clogging of gutters and channels, circulation in the food chain and adorning our streets. This training is designed to mop up all plastic wastes from dumpsites and streets, thus cleaning our environment and saving us all from attendant consequences.
“States and Federal Government have made several attempts of intervention in taking the almajiris out of the streets through the provision of formal education, as wonderful as these efforts are; some of the children prefer to run back to the street where they have developed a particular style of life eking a livelihood from begging. Therefore, abolishing this strenuous system of upbringing of our future leaders may not be achieved by only formal education.
“The training of streets youth on the conversion of plastic wastes into interlocking tiles will provide livelihood, empower and take them off the streets, reduce the nuisance they constitute and clean the environment. This training which will be taking to all parts of Nigeria will revolutionalize the building and construction industry in Nigeria as has in other parts of the world. I encourage the participants to take full advantage of this training to create a livelihood for themselves to save them from the physical and emotional blackmails of begging on the street
“There is no doubt that there is the linkage between the Almajiri system and how the Almajiri are used as instruments of violent extremism during ethno-religious and political conflicts by terror groups, which, in return, portrays them as prospective terrorists in the country. Providing a sustainable livelihood such as this will go a long way in keeping them off the street and away from gangsters recruitment giving that they now have a livelihood.
“In a nutshell, this training involves the collection of any kind of plastic wastes from the dumpsites, streets etc and mixing same in a heated furnace with sharp sand and molding it into interlocking tiles of any shape you want. This process provides cheaper interlocking tiles than the cement based ones yet are 3-6 times stronger than the cement based interlocking tiles.” He continued: “The reasons is simple, the major raw material (plastic wastes) is free and in terms of strength, the plastic wastes provides the binding, these interlocking tiles cannot be invaded by algae as it does the cement based and changes its colour. These interlocking tiles cure instantly, they don’t have to wait for 3 days to be ready to use, they can be used almost immediately, and they can be tipped at offloading and would not break unlike that of cement based. The advantages are endless, so we are hopeful that as the training goes round the country, off takers will soon discover its benefits and prefer the nylon based interlocking tiles to that of cement based. This revolution will reduce the cost of construction greatly.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is our hope that this training will impact the street youths positively on a large scale as we take it round the country, we therefore encourage the private sector especially those in the construction industry to partner with us as we take our future leaders off the street by giving them a sustainable livelihood. No partnership is too small or big. The ministry of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs is poised to collaborate with the organized private sector to create large amount of jobs for our youths. We have for instance been talking to Jaiz Bank which has indicated interest to partner with us on this very training on a large scale. We encourage others to join us to realize the dream of Mr. President to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years”.
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