HOPE, creative human resource initiative, taps oil region youths

Ben Eguzozie

HOPE, a creative human resource initiative designed to mop up thousands of especially idle and unemployed young people in the oil region, has registered nearly half-a-million people, in a move to open a few frontiers to explore the creative human resource of youths in the oil region.

The oil producing states of the Niger Delta (South-South geopolitical zone) rank among Nigeria’s worst unemployed states. Example: Imo, an oil producing state, with 48.7 percent, has the highest unemployment rate in the country to-date; followed by Akwa Ibom with 45.2 percent, and Rivers with 43.7 percent. Additionally, the region ranks top with 35 percent, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) unemployment data across states and regions in Nigeria in 2020. The attendant youth unemployment in the oil region is the result of restiveness and militancy in the region, despite sitting on humongous wealth.

Blessing Fubara, coordinator of the HOPE initiative, a project of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), said the initiative is strategically opening new frontiers to explore the creative human resource of youths in the region.

He said more youths in the region will be engaged in the initiative with the commencement of the Music and Arts (MAP) component of the HOPE project.

The music and arts component is one of five spectrum of engagement of youths in the Niger Delta under the project HOPE to encourage the creative industry.

Other spectrums of intervention include the NDDC Internship Programme, Niger Delta Youth Technology Programme, Desk for Entrepreneurial Support (N-Desk), and Agricultural 9-9-9 initiative.

The NDDC project HOPE was unveiled in July 2023, with a promise to create at least one thousand jobs through strategic partnership and skills development of youths in each of the nine NDDC states. These are: Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo and Rivers.

Samuel Ogbuku, managing director of NDDC, in an assessment of the impact of the project so far, said he was delighted that more than three hundred thousand youths from the oil region have registered on the project HOPE data registration platform.

He further assured that the HOPE initiative was real, and would be sustained. He added that the database will allow the commission to do requisite selection and monitor their progress.

“NDDC is using technology to ensure that youths of the region do not need to know anybody to be enlisted into the HOPE programme,” he said.

Victor Antai, NDDC’s executive director, projects, wants youths in the oil region to leverage the opportunities provided by all the components in the NDDC project HOPE.