MSMEs as panacea to youth unemployment: Delta’s example

Posted By: Okungbowa Aiwerie On: December 22, 2017
Last week, over 400 trained youths participated in a Products Exhibition and Business Fair which held in Asaba, the Delta State capital. The crowd of youthful exhibitors, beneficiaries of the Skills Training and Entrepreneurship Programme (STEP) and Youth Agricultural Entrepreneurs Programme (YAGEP) designed by the Okowa-led administration to help achieve its twin goals of tackling unemployment and nurturing Micro, Small and medium scale Enterprises (MSME’s), filled the cenotaph.

A morning haze, which was tempered by a cool breeze, hung over the venue of the event.  Loud contemporary Nigerian music thrilled the audience -creating a carnival atmosphere .The mood was buoyant and the crowd expectant.

Gaily dressed women, mostly PDP faithful, filled the terraces adding colour and drama to the event.

Hundreds of excited youths, clad in sky-blue vests and base -ball caps, jeans trousers manned colourful booths- exhibiting their creative and productive potentials in a variety of goods and services. The exhibitors were some of the graduates of the Okowa administration’s Skills Training and Entrepreneurship Programme (STEP) and Youth Agricultural Entrepreneur Programme (YAGEP) schemes.



Business was brisk at the fair. Rows of food vendors, mainly products of the scheme’s catering and confectionary programme, offered both Nigerian, Foreign and local delicacies to the teeming crowd. Sizzling hot barbecued catfish, roasted ham, bacon and chicken were on display on locally fabricated ovens –an inviting aroma hung over the grounds. Many seized the opportunity provided by the business fair to shop for the yuletide.

The art of weaving of the local fabric (Akwa-Ocha) received a boost with the display of modern Akwa-Ocha machines, to improve productivity and reduce production times.

Akwa-Ocha, a local fabric, literally means white cloth. It is a symbol of the cultural heritage of the Anioma people.

The well-apportioned booths brimmed with a variety of goods and services including ICT, hair dressing and makeover, catering and confectionary, cosmetology, craft/home care products ,decoration and event management ,electrical installation and repairs ,fashion design and tailoring ,shoe-making upholstery ,welding and Fabrication and auto mechanic works.

The agricultural enterprises covered aquaculture, crop production, agro-processing and piggery.

Delta State Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, who declared the Product Exhibition and Business Fair open, was accompanied to the event by Ex-Governor James Ibori and Sokoto State Governor Aminu Tambuwal and several top functionaries.   Other include wife of the Governor of Delta State, Edith Okowa, Deputy Governor of Delta State, Kingsley Otuaro and his wife, Ebi.



Okowa noted that his administration recognition that certain economic sectors and activities hold the highest potentials for job and wealth creation for the economy ,adding that this informed the need by his  government to spend more on these sectors knowing it is cost effective and go a long way to reduce youth unemployment and poverty

His words, “Globally, it has been established that certain economic sectors and activities hold the highest potentials for job and wealth creation for the economy; these are agriculture, agribusiness, agro-based industries, vocational skills-based micro enterprises, cottage enterprises, small and medium scale enterprises as well as public works such as environmental sanitation, housing and road construction; in fact, interventions in these sectors are generally cost-effective and go a long way to reduce youth unemployment and poverty, while ensuring social inclusion, positive economic growth and sustainable development as has been observed in many countries in South Asia, South East Asia and Latin America.”

Through our flagship Skill Training and Entrepreneurship Programme (STEP) and Youth Agricultural Entrepreneurs Programme (YAGEP), we have achieved what many thought was unthinkable; after two programme cycles, two thousand, three hundred and twenty four (2,324) previously unemployed youths are now small business owners and employers of labour.”

Okowa lauded the Products Exhibition and Business Fair organised by the beneficiaries of Job Creation Scheme of his administration.

The Nation