By; JACOB ONJEWU DICKSON, Kaduna.
The population of the youth in Kaduna State if not positively tapped, will create a lot of social vices for their families and government, Deputy Governor, Architect Barnabas Bala Bantex has said.
He expressed this while hosting some executives of the Arewa Creative Industry at the Sir Kashim Ibrahim House on Friday.
He explained that the state government led by Governor Nasir el-Rufai as a result, is planning programmes that would have direct bearing on the youth.
“Issues of youths are central to this administration. They are the topmost in our heart. Of the nine million estimated population of Kaduna State, 65 per cent are below 35 years, which makes them youths.
“It is a largely youth population we are endowed with. We also know that is a double edged sword that can be negative or positive. If the youths are engaged and are busy positively, we would be happy but if they are not, we will lose sleep,” he said.
Bantex said that in checking the negative tendencies, youths are priority on every development agenda in the state.
“Right now we are drawing investors and we are not even asking for their money. We just tell them to invest and employ 10,000 or 20,000 or 50,000 of our youth,” he added.
Earlier, Secretary of the Arewa Creative Industry, Adamu Barde Kagarko told the Deputy Governor that the group is registered and contributes to the development of the creative industry in the 19 Northern states and Abuja.
He said that Kaduna’s history and potentials attracted them to set up their head office in it.
