PTI Principal/CEO, Ademula, charges Nigerian youths against depending on govt for employment

By Gabriel Oghenekaro,

The Principal/Chief Executive Officer of Petroleum Training Institute (PTI), Effurun, Delta State, Dr. Henry Ademula has urged Nigerian youths to stop depending on the government to provide jobs for them, saying government alone cannot provide jobs for everyone.

Dr. Ademula gave the charge at the opening ceremony of a two weeks Specialized Capacity Building Workshop for Niger Delta Youths on Petroleum Engineering Technology related skills training programme for selected youths from Niger Delta, held on Monday, 8th November 2021 at the Conference Hall of the institute.

He urged Nigerian youths to take advantage of the various schemes provided by the Federal government to make them self employed and employers of labours, commending the federal government for its drive-in youth empowerment.

He disclosed that the programme was fully funded by the federal government through the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, pointing that it was targeted at equipping unskilled, skilled and semi-skilled youths from the Niger Delta with petroleum technology skills that will put them ahead of others and help them expand their businesses.

According to him, “the programme is a PTI programme, but you know that PTI train at a different level than what we are having today. Here we are training skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled youths in various aspects of technology not directly what PTI is known to train for, that is why we decided to engage a consultant and team of experts to teach the necessary skills to the youths that we are training today.

“The people we are training are drawn from the entire Niger Delta and we are training them to help them stand on their own. What we do is to select 25 to 30 persons from each state in the Niger Delta, this is because it is not possible to train all the youths at the same time due to the funding situation.”

He further urged the participants to take advantage of the opportunity given them through the programme and develop themselves, just as he expressed optimism that there will be a remarkable change in the lives of the participants at the end of the training.

Also speaking during the ceremony, the Managing Director of Ufugold Projects Services Limited (UPSL) the consulting firm in charge of the capacity building workshop, Mr Ufuoma Johngold lamented the growing rate of Internet fraud, popularly called ‘yahoo’ and prostitution amongst Nigerian youths.

He pointed that the programme was targeted among other things to pull youths out from the street and encourage as many not to emulate the bad ones.

He said, “when you see what is happening today on the street, my heart bleeds. You see the kind of clothes they wear, the kind of hair they do, is only God that knows the source of their fund now but we want to see how we can encourage others not to follow the bad.

“There is no job anywhere but with this, they can be self-employed. We are training them on petroleum technology, that is on manufacturing petroleum products. For instance, soap making is a petroleum product, paint is a petroleum product, electrical wiring and others. What we are going to do at the end of the programme is that we are going to give them materials to produce what they have learned and ensure they are good to go.”

While advising the participant to be serious with their training, Mr Johngold also prayed for the wisdom and blessings of God upon them and the works of their hands.