BusinessDay 08 Apr 2018

Sunday 08 April 2018 C002D5556
9
Feature
How 3 square meals a day in Delta Orientation
Camp lured jobless youth off a planned crime
…Now a successful entrepreneur in fish production
MERCY ENOCH, Asaba
Thousands of youths in Delta State
are now taking the business option
rather than crime, thus turning into
successful entrepreneurs, courtesy
of the Job and Wealth Creation
Scheme under the SMART agenda of the
incumbent Governor Ifeanyi Okowa administration
in the oil-rich state.
For three consecutive years now, a total of
3,277 youths including graduates of tertiary
institutions have benefitted from the scheme.
Out of this figure, 2,324 were trained and established
in the last two years while 953 are
currently undergoing training and would be
established to start up their own enterprises
few months to come.
The beneficiaries otherwise known as
STEPrenuers and YAGEPrenuers, often excited
by the gesture extended to them, do
not waste time to tell their stories to anyone
who cares to hear.
Terry Ogolor, a graduate of Biology/Chemistry
from College of Education, Agbor, who
hails from the Udu Local Government Area
of the state, revealed more in this interview.
He said: “I thank God that through the
SMART agenda of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa
my life has been transformed and I have been
liberated from being a job seeker to an entrepreneur.
Upon graduation from the College
of Education in 2009, I was unemployed till I
enrolled into the state government’s Youth
Agricultural Entrepreneurs Programme
(YAGEP).”
“Initially, I taught in a private school, but
discovered that the N10,000 that I was being
paid was nothing to write home about.
Thereafter, I started hustling on the streets,
but the street was not friendly. One day, a
friend informed me about job creation form.
Though I applied, I was not shortlisted. The
second time, I reluctantly applied; I thought
it was a scam, one of those government
programmes. To my greatest surprise, I was
invited to attend the interview after which I
did not hear from Job Creation Office for a
while. I became frustrated and concluded it
was a sham and gave up,” he said.
Ogolor narrated that on the streets, to
feed was a problem. “So, my friends and I decided
to go into crime to survive. We planned
towards executing a crime. While we were
planning, the list was published and those
who saw my name informed me that I was
invited to Orientation Camp at Delta Songhai,
Amukpe in Sapele Local Government Area”.
Life in the camp led to a complete turnaround
in his life.
“At the camp, I had three square meals
daily throughout the one week we stayed.
For the first time in my life, it was unbelievable.
I could have three meals every day. After
three days at the camp, my friends called
and told me it was time to execute our plans
for the crime, but I called it off, telling them
I had travelled. I was no longer interested in
crime because I was comfortable with life at
the orientation camp. In fact, I had a rethink
and decided to get serious with my life after
the Orientation and Personal Effectiveness
Training (OPET),” he said.
“Thereafter, I had a three-month internship
where I became well-grounded in fish
production. My trainer was good. Shortly after
that, I was given 2000 juveniles, 150 bags of
fish feed, a monthly stipend of N15,000 for
six months, two earthen ponds and other
items. My assessment of my starter pack
excluding the ponds was over a million naira.
Terry Ogolor in his fish farm
I was shocked and I began to shed tears. I
then pledged that I am indebted to the state
government and that the only way I could
pay back is to ensure that I succeeded in my
enterprise,” he further said.
According to him, “Apart from fish farming,
I am into transportation too. I was able
to use part of the proceeds from my fish
farm after harvest to buy a tricycle (keke.)
My colleagues at the farm now hire me to
transport their feeds for them from the point
of purchase to the cluster. Also, I use the keke
to supply feeds to various farms on behalf
of feed sellers and I am well paid. My daily
routine is work at the farm in the morning,
resume transportation and return to the farm
by 5pm. I recently rejected a N75,000.00 job to
work as a scaffolder in Port Harcourt.”
He expressed his feeling: “Today, I am a
happy fish farm owner at YAGEP Fish Farm
Cluster, Ugbokodo Okpe. I can fend for
myself, family and friends because of what
Governor Ifeanyi Okowa did for me. I am a
consultant by experience. I help those with
challenges in their fish farms and the pay is
encouraging. I have grown my fish from 2,000
to over 4,000. The sky is my limit! Recently, I
took my son to a hospital and in the course
of billing me, I discussed with the doctor
and found out he is interested in fish farming
when I told him my occupation. As I am
talking to you, I am setting up his fish farm
and the pay is good. Thanks to the vision of
His Excellency, the governor of Delta State,
for making me a consultant to a doctor and
many others in fish production.”
While inaugurating the job and wealth
creation programme at inception in office
three years ago, Okowa had said that the
scheme “is the bedrock of the SMART agenda
with Skills and Enterpreneurship Programme
(STEP) and Youth Agricultural Entrepreneurs
Programme (YAGEP) as the flagship programmes.”
“Other programmes under job and wealth
creation scheme are Production and Processing
Support Programme (PPSP), Development
of Agro-Industries, and Extension of
Micro-Credit. All the programmes have been
strategically designed, stringently planned
and specifically tailored to tackle the problem
of youth unemployment and produce lasting
and sustainable prosperity across board”, he
explained.
He disclosed that “Our strategy for making
this a reality is through focused and concentrated
efforts to stimulate the growth and
development of Micro, Small and Medium
Scale Enterprises (MSMEs)”. He added that
while multi-national companies and big
corporations get all the public attention and
acclaim for their capacity to reduce foreign
investment capital, MSMEs remain the
backbone for economic growth and social
development in any society.
“By definition, MSMEs are companies
that employ less than 250 persons and available
statistics indicate that 97 percent of all
businesses in Nigeria employ less than 100
persons. Meanwhile, they account for about
50 percent of Nigeria’s productive workforce
and 46.5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product
(GDP). The story is not different in other
parts of the world. There are approximately
23 million small businesses in the USA and
they employ more than 50 percent of the
private workforce and generate more than
half of the nation’s GDP. Similarly, MSMEs
account for 99.8 percent of all companies
and 65 percent of business turnover in the
European Union.”
He said his administration, for that reason,
was very passionate, deliberate, and focused
in the quest to formulate tangible and lasting
policies and/or programmes to support the
small business sector. The overarching goal
of the job and wealth creation scheme, he
said, is to equip participants with the technical
know-how, vocational/technical skills, values
and resources to become self-employed and
employers of labour.”
“I am aware that there have been similar
interventions in the history of our state. Unfortunately,
these interventions did not deliver
on their promises and, therefore, failed
to meet the yearnings and aspirations of our
people. Not surprisingly, some people have
wondered if we are not just reinventing the
wheel or going through the same motions
without movement. My answer to that is a
resounding NO! We carried out a thorough
post mortem of past initiatives in this regard
and designed the Job and Wealth Creation
Scheme to avoid their shortcomings”, Okowa
declared.
Ogolor’s testimony and those of other
beneficiaries seem to give credence to the
governor’s statements. What stands the
scheme out are the free meals at orientation
camps, transport allowances during the trainings,
complete starter packs comprising basic
tools needed for successful business start up
and stipend for three months on establishment
of enterprise. Besides, the monitoring
and mentoring aspect is said to be superb.
The Chief Job Creation Officer, a professor,
Eric Eboh, said the essence of emphasising
on the completeness and integrity of
starter packs was to avoid pitfalls of similar
empowerment programmes characterised
by incomplete enterprise start-up packages
delivered in piecemeal manner.
Eboh disclosed that the implementation
strategy of co-locating YAGEP beneficiaries in
farm clusters, organising them into cooperative
societies and progressing them as participants
in the Central Bank of Nigeria – Ministry
of Agriculture Anchor Borrowers Programme
were vital building blocks of sustainability.