Fifty youths, both males and females were at the weekend trained on digital marketing by the Chairman of Ifako-Ijaye Local Government Area of Lagos State, Apostle Oloruntoba Oke, as part of his commitment to reducing youth unemployment.
The training which was part of the council chairman’s campaign promises on apacity development was designed to teach the youth on areas such as Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Branding, Video Marketing, Social Media Marketing, and Google Advert among others.
Oke, in his opening remarks during the training said the programme was part of efforts to depopulate the already congested labour market.
“This is part of our efforts at reducing youth unemployment we want to make sure the youths are self-employed, because the white collar jobs are no longer there.
We had one training just two weeks ago, and we are going to be having another one in four weeks time. After the training, we would empower the youths with necessary tools to work with.
The next one will be training on phone repair, then, we will equip them with necessary kits. We will ensure our people no longer need to go to Computer Village at Ikeja, anymore for phone repair and this will increase our IGR”, the chairman said.
He admonished the beneficiaries to take advantage of the training programme by utilising the knowledge gained to become self reliant.
Some of the beneficiaries of the training programme who spoke with journalists lauded Oke’s initiative, while promising to make him proud by making use of the knowledge gained from the training to make money and improve their livelihoods.
“I am very happy for this opportunity given to us by Apostle Toba, it shows he is a man of his words, I remember vividly during his campaign, he said he was going to tackle youth unemployment in Ifako-Ijaye, this is a fulfillment of his campaign promise”, Mr. Hunponu Adekunle Sanayon said.
Another beneficiary, Akinlade Jide Raphael also said, you cannot believe I was about paying N50,000 for this training elsewhere, because I really need it, there was a job I could have got if only I was proficient with the use of this digital tools. This is the training the Chairman is giving us for free, God will bless Apostle Oloruntoba Oke for us”, he said.