Youths in Imo State have opposed the ‘graduates must work’ scheme of the state governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, saying it is more of grandstanding than real.
Operating under the aegis of Imo Youth Assembly (IYA), the youths blasted the modalities for engaging youths into the programme.
The ‘graduates must work’ project was launched with fanfare on Monday, May 20 in Owerri, the state capital.
During the launch, youths undertook a march past as part of identifying the unemployed ones amongst them. They were also shown on national television.
The IYA maintained that these strategies give Okorocha out as one who does not mean well for youths.
In a statement signed by Dr. Onumo Harold Wilson, National President; Precious Nwadike, Secretary and Edede Frankyln, Public Relations Officer; the youth wondered why they needed to be paraded on national television and publicly to be entitled to N20,000 stipend each monthly.
Most nauseating, the youths pointed out, was that the governor has continued to play host to Northern youths at Government House Owerri and has not thought it wise to host leaders of organized youth groups in the state.
They therefore urged the governor to rather re-absorb the dismissed 10,000 youths who were employed by his predecessor.
The youths equally wondered from which budgetary sub-head the governor would draw the N20,000 stipend since the 2013 fiscal proposal of the state is yet to be passed by the state legislature and assented to by the governor.
The IYA also listed the dismissal of 100 staff of Imo Geographical Information Agency, casual workers in the local government councils and the non-payment of salaries of primary teachers who were employed since 2011 as Okorocha’s show of contempt to the plight of youths in the state.
They said it rankles that all of these happened in spite of the more than N200billion which the governor had received as statutory allocations in two years.
