The centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) has urged the federal government to address the issue of youth unemployment as they continued to provide the recruitment base for Boko Haram insurgents and urban violent gangs.

The programme manager of CITAD, Abdulganiyu Rufa’i stated this during a policy brief titled Beyond Winning the Minds: Youth, Peace Building and Entrepreneurship, held at Murtala Muhammad Library in Kano State yestyerday.

According to him, tackling the problem of unemployment among youth would prevent them from being recruited into joining extremists group or engaging in violent activities in the society, noting that engaging the youth would make them productive and legitimate economic actors in the society.

He said, “government should introduce mainstream entrepreneurship programme as part of winning away youth from extremists ideas. The government should also leverage the vast potentials of outsourcing an IT-based business to create jobs for teeming unemployed youths in the country.” He advised

He noted that the state governments need to review their youth policies in line with the modern democratic era.

Rufa’i also called on the civil society groups to advocate and monitor the implementation of the provisions of various youth related policies, adding that the NGOs should engage out of school youth in peace building and entrepreneurship.

Gentle men of the press, civil society members and ladies and gentle
men here present we welcome you all to this memorable occasion. It is
a common knowledge that Nigerians have for long been making outcries
against the unethical attitudes of Some telecom Service Providers who
engage in unsolicited telemarketing by incessantly sending messages
and making network calls to their subscribers on daily basis .This do
not only constitute nuisance and encroachment  upon the privacy of the
telecommunications subscribers and cause different sorts of
inconveniences to them but  conflict with the spirit of the Consumer
Code of Practice Regulations (2007). Despite numerous calls by
Nigerian subscribers, civil societies and the national Assembly
against that. This attitude keep growing day by day. CITAD an
organization that is  an advocate of internet freedom and digital
inclusiveness ,we do hereby in the strongest terms condemn these
attitude and call for immediate seizure of these kind of services.
In our efforts to add our voice to the popular movement against these
exploitative tendencies, we have already Serve Reactions Notice to the
Nigerian Communication Commission in pursuant to Section 142 of the
NCC Act, CAP N97,Laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (2010).NCC
have already responded to our notice, the commission has already
brought to our notice that it is in the process of issuing a direction
to all networks operators requesting that a “Do Not Disturb” option be
available to on their networks to enable subscribers to opt out at any
time in respect of unsolicited text messages and calls. While
commending the welcome development from NCC ,we call for speedy
implementation of this directives .

Sign

Abdulganiyu Rufai Y

For Directo