Nigerian economy doing well –Cheif Ernest Shonekan

Former Head of Interim National Government (ING), Chief Ernest Shonekan, has said that the nation’s economy is currently doing well even as he urged the present administration to sustain the momentum.

Shonekan also stressed the need to continuously train the teeming youths in the country, saying that the future of the nation belongs to that category which constitutes the majority of the population.

Making the observation when he received a team from the Office of the Special Adviser on Presidential Amnesty Programme, Kingsley Kuku, the former Head of Interim Government said the nation needs to work hard to sustain current economic growth.

He commended the Federal Government’s efforts in the implementation of the Presidential Amnesty programme.

His words: “I am happy for the effort of the government in trying to implement the Presidential Amnesty programme. This is because we have to train Nigerian youths.

“The youths are in a greater majority in the country at the moment. Thank God Nigeria is progressing economically but we need to sustain the growth by training our youths like the Amnesty programme is doing.”

Shonekan who is the founder of Supreme Offshore Limited that has stakes in Maersk Shipping Line expressed his readiness to partner the Amnesty Office to train youths of the Niger Delta.

He commended the Amnesty Programme but however admitted that the implementation of good ideas was not always easy.

Speaking earlier, Kuku told the elder statesman that so many young people look up to him as a role model and would like to be like him. He said the aim of the visit was to share ideas with Shonekan on how young men and women of the Niger Delta under the Amnesty programme could get post-training engagement.

He said: “Our visit is to seek partnership with our elder statesman to continue to provide leadership for the private sector to continue to support the present administration and the President’s vision of creating  two million jobs per year.

“We are impressed with the facilities of Maersk Line. Interestingly, they are not just talking about bringing the youths for training but they also have acquired facilities for training in Port Harcourt. It is in tandem with the local content law now.” He informed Shonekan that the Amnesty Office  would like to partner Maersk to ensure that the most basic of training takes place in Nigeria.

“That reduces capital flight and goes a long way in helping to build our economy. It is quite a beautiful partnership we are trying to go into and it will surely help this country,” he said.

Kuku observed that the former Head of ING has provided a very credible platform for the kind of thing Maersk Line can do for Africa and are doing in Nigeria.

He informed that the Amnesty programme was currently reintegrating 30,000 youths back to the society with over 5,000 of them already being sponsored in universities in and outside the country. The Special Adviser said 6,000 of them are in private universities in Nigeria, adding that in the United Kingdom, there are about 800 of them in nothing less than 47 universities studying in various fields while in the United States, the Amnesty Office has over 200 Niger Delta youths in various universities undergoing training.