The federal government has assured that it would commence payment of N5,000 promised unemployed Nigerian youth during the electioneering campaign, from 2016 .
The minister of youth and sports, Solomon Dalong, made the commitment on Wednesday when he paid a condolence visit on the national chairman of the governing All Progressives Congress, APC, John Odigie-Oyegun, over the death of the party’s governorship candidate in the recently held inconclusive election in Kogi state, Abubakar Audu.
Mr. Dalong,who spoke to journalists during the visit, said the APC government was fully committed to fulfilling all campaign promises made before the last elections.
He said the payment of the promised N5,000 can only begin after it had been included in the budget.
“I would want the youth to understand that every promise must be backed up by budgetary provision and our promise to pay N5000 is not contained in the 2015 budget. So, definitely, it is going to begin in 2016 as we have made budgetary allocations for that,” he said.
“We are committed to the campaign promises of creating jobs, providing wealth and combat poverty. We have embedded in our manifesto things that we are translating to reality.”
The minister said some of the youth empowerment programmes that were ongoing were being reviewed so that they become more viable and people-oriented.
He said a definite programme of orientation for the youth in Nigeria has to be put in place as according to him “they have been frustrated for so long”.
“They have lost confidence in the system and we need to build that back. In not too long a time, I will be hosting a stakeholders summit so that we can reason together so that we can grow their confidence in order for them to benefit from this laudable ideas,” he said.
Speaking earlier, the APC Chairman, Mr. Oyegun said he was happy with the appointment of Mr. Dalong as the minister of youth and sports due to his experience and performance in public life.
Mr. Oyegun said he had confidence that Mr. Dalong would provide the needed change required in his ministry.
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