Rahma Ahmed
By Ahmed Rahma
Over 2,000 youth in Bauchi State would be trained in agriculture by the state government as part of efforts to empower them.
Governor of the state, Mr Bala Mohammed, made this disclosure when he received the executives of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).
According to Mr Mohammed, the beneficiaries would be chosen from all the local government areas of the northern state of the federation.
He assured that more would be picked because his administration was determined to ensure that residents of the state are financially independent.
“Right now, we are doing a programme where we are selecting about 2,000 youths to go for agricultural training and they are selected across the 20 local governments with equity
“The second batch has finished a course in Abuja and they will be going in succession. We intend to spend a lot of money and to make them look inward to explore their potentials,” he said
The Governor also informed his visitors that the state government was also making efforts to make the senior citizens of the state to be happy.
According to him, this is being done through the prompt payment of their pensions despite the challenges his administration was facing at the moment.
The Governor noted that his administration inherited about N27 billion retirement arrears but stressed that the pensioners now receive their payments regularly.
He explained that this has been achieved by blocking loopholes in the civil service by plunging the menace of ghost workers.
Mr Mohammed assured that this would be sustained to be able to meet the obligations of the government.
“Unless we are able to free resources, we won’t be able to employ people.
“We have a prevalence of ghost workers and we are working very hard to make sure we free resources in our personnel emolument within the nominal rolls that have been bastardised.
“Even though we got Paris club funds, we got bailout money, we were not able to settle all that.
“However, pensioners are getting their money as and when due and in fact, even their retirement benefits, we inherited N27 billion retirement arrears from the previous administrations,” he said.
