Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank (AFDB), said that young people in Nigeria and 51 other countries in Africa do not need to be under the guise of empowerment programs, but capital capital to fund their ideas and convert the same wealth into lasting wealth.
“For young people and JAPA syndrome, this is a huge loss for us,” Adesina said in an exclusive interview aired on the channel’s TV show Sunrise Sunrise on Thursday, April 10.
“Young people don’t need freebies; they don’t need people to say, ‘I just want to authorize you the plan’.
“They have the skills, have the knowledge, have the ability to start businesses and they want to turn their ideas into great businesses.
“What young people need is not those empowerment programs; they need capital, they need you to put money at risk on their behalf,” he added.
The economist lamented the immigration phenomenon in Nigeria known as “Japa”, saying it was a huge loss to Nigeria and the continent.
“We have more than 465 million young people between the ages of 15 and 35,” he said, warning that Africa should not turn its population assets into “anyone else’s problem” because it is impossible to believe young people and invest in the idea of prosperity on the continent.
“I don’t think the future of our young people is in Europe; it’s not in the United States, it’s not in Canada, Japan or China; it should lie in Africa, grow well, continue to grow, and be able to create quality jobs for our young people.”
Adesina said that the youth population in Africa is not a problem for the entire continent, because the population of India and China is not a problem for them. “It’s your work on the population; how to improve their skills.”
If young people in Africa are skilled in having good jobs and social protection, then these people will turn to the prosperity of the continent because of the high purchasing power of demographics. He said that in a world of rising tariffs, it is important for Africa to build consumption as part of its gross domestic product (GDP).
Adesina said that in order to support young people in Africa, AFDB has created a Youth Entrepreneur Development Bank to support its business plans and address institutional failures around financing.
He said the AFDB just approved $100 million to establish a Nigerian Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Bank to “mobilize $20 billion in investment for more than 38,000 young business in Africa.”
“You can’t turn your population assets into someone else’s problems. We have to put money behind young people to create opportunities for them.
“They don’t need N5,000, N10,000. You want to create wealth based on youth. If you don’t do that, who are the people who will pay taxes in the future? Where will you mobilize capital in the future? So you have to invest in the same population so that you can gain in the future,” he suggested.
