The Youth Entrepreneurial and Leadership Initiative (YELI) 2021 has awarded some youths across 17 local government areas in Enugu State.
With N10 million to dole out, 17 young business owners benefited from the initiative to support their businesses that are more than a year old and not more than three years.
The program was targeted at business owners who fall between the ages of 20 and 35, reports Guardian.
Seventeen business owners took home varying amounts of money, with N2 million being the highest amount awarded and N150,000 being the least.
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Politicians without ‘Means of Sustenance’
Explaining the importance of supporting young businesses in Nigeria, former President of the Senate, Ken Nnamani, said that many of the politicians today enter the office and end up “looting” and mismanaging funds because they did not have other means of sustenance.
He said that the support of young business owners was necessary to ensure that people do not aspire to enter public offices because they do not “have a second address”.
He said, “the country was the way it is because a good number of persons known as politicians today do not have other means of sustenance”
Hence, according to him, “they resort to looting and mismanagement of public resources in a bid to make money and in the end up in jail”.
“So, you don’t aspire to get into politics when you don’t have a second address. This mentality of grabbing is the reason we are the way we are. This is something the youths must avoid to make the difference for our country to move forward.”
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