Northern Regional Minister, Salifu Saeed, has mounted a strong defence for the youth of the region and fiercely kicked against the century long negative perception held by many Ghanaians that the youth in the area are violent.
Even though, the youth have over the years been used by some unscrupulous politicians and other influential persons to foment troubles and have been deeply involved in almost all the chieftaincy, land and political disputes in the region, the regional minister however, said the youth were just victims of circumstances.
The Northern Region has several youth groups mostly sponsored by politicians and political parties, who have built pavilions and other structures, painted with political parties’ colours, serving as vigilante groups for those parties.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Suhupielli News in Tamale, Mr. Saeed said the youth of Northern Region were only being influenced to take arms for their own destruction simply because they have no jobs to do.
The minister observed that “If you profile a lot of the youth on individual basis, you will realize that majority of them are well educated and are responsible people with wives and children or are from good homes.”
He indicated that some of the youth had completed Universities, Polytechnics and Senior High Schools (SHS) but they were being.
Mr. Saeed further indicated that majority of them had also travelled to the southern part of Ghana to learn trade and had come back without any job, hence their involvement in violent acts.
He said that even though he was not trying to justify the bad behavior of some of the youth, he had every conviction that with availability of jobs and other opportunities for the youth to further their education, they would forever remain peaceful, law abiding and productive to the region.
The regional minister, who is also a development practitioner, outlined plans by the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) government to employ majority of the youth of the region and Ghana as a whole to become useful to the nation.
According to him, the government would repackage, restructure and expand the operations of the Microfinance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) to provide financial and other support to most of the youth groups to do their own businesses.
Aside from that, he said that the government was also going to employ several thousands of youth under the Youth Employment Authority (YEA) and the Planting for Foods and Jobs programme to prevent them from causing violence in the society.
He disclosed that his administration was lobbying for companies that have the capacities to develop water harvesting irrigation dams to store the excess water from the Bagre Dam in Burkina Faso to promote dry season farming across the region especially vegetable and flower productions.
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