President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime says it is committed to creating an enabling environment for creating 21 million full-time jobs and lifting 35 million people out of poverty by 2025.

Labour minister Chris Ngige announced this during an ‘Inter-Ministerial Training Workshop on Boosting Job Creation’ on Friday in Abuja, according to a statement by the ministry.

The minister said the country’s high unemployment rate could no longer be ignored.

“The ministry, in collaboration with its social partners and relevant stakeholders, had taken immediate and more proactive approaches to creating jobs, empowering the youths, and increasing productivity,” stated Mr Ngige.

The minister hoped the workshop would help navigate the paths for responsive actions that would bring about job creation.

“Such responsive actions that would stimulate sustainable job creation include encouraging entrepreneurship orientation from the primary level to inculcate the culture of self-employment amongst the pupils at the early stage,” he explained. ”Others are providing credit facilities at low-interest rates, which would encourage youths to engage in agricultural entrepreneurship, as well as improving mechanical, agricultural systems.”

The labour minister Ngige also identified other responses as creating more employment opportunities in urban and rural areas by strengthening tourism and providing basic infrastructure, especially power and good road networks.

Ten thousand Police constables that passed out on Thursday will be deployed to provide security during the forthcoming 2023 general elections.

The Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, disclosed this at the passing out parade of the 2022 batch of police constables in Ilorin, Kwara State.

“It is noted that after today’s event, all the graduating recruit constables will be deployed to complement officers on the forthcoming election security duties across the nation, in a bid to ensure a free, fair and credible electoral process.

“This event , which is taking place simultaneously in four premier colleges and police training schools across the country, wraps up six months of highly challenging rigorous, physical, and intellectual training activities and it signifies the transition of the recruits mainstream professional policing duties with the right orientation to meet emerging security challenges within the dictates of the rule of law.

“It should also be noted that the recruitment exercise was spread over the 774 local government areas of the country with due regard to federal character considerations and in line with the directives of Mr President,” the inspector general of police stated.

IGP Baba, who was represented by the Assistant Inspector General of Police Zone 8, Ashafa Adekunle, added that, “in the attainment of community policing goals, the recruits will all be posted back to their various local government areas to further entrench the policing strategy of the federal government towards addressing communal crimes in their respective areas of purview.”

He told the new police recruits that the bedrock of policing is discipline, adding that, “much as you have a a promising and brighter career ahead of you, how far you go in this career depends , to a great extent, on your character, discipline, and integrity.”

Kwara State governor, AbdulRahaman AbdulRazaq, was represented at the event by his senior special assistant on Security, Alh. Muyideen Aliyu, while the Baba Isale of Ilorin represented the Emir of Ilorin, HRH Alh. Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari.

The State’s Commisioner of Police, Paul Odama, who enjoined the new recruits to maintain high level of discipline and shun corruption, later presented awards to outstanding graduands.

The Borno State police command said it had incorporated about 1,800 police constabulary to complement the efforts of security agencies in combating crimes in the state.

Police commissioner Abdu Umar disclosed this in Maiduguri on Sunday. He said the newly recruited volunteers were currently receiving orientations on what was expected of them in the discharge of their duties.

Mr Umar said that the constables would be deployed to their communities across the 27 local government areas in the state for effective community policing.

He said that the Community Policing Constabulary Scheme of the Force was purely voluntary service introduced by the federal government to train and incorporate individuals with prior paid employment who desire to spend their spare time assisting the police in its simple police tasks within their various communities.

He explained that their roles would include assisting the police in crime detection and prevention, conflict resolution, intelligence gathering and dissemination to local police commanders.

Other roles included maintenance of law and order, deployment to complement conventional police officers in patrolling their communal public space, advising the public on safety, as well as working with relevant stakeholders on crime control.

“We have already deployed 10 police men in all the LGAs in the state to augment other sister security agencies that are combating terrorism and other crimes.

“Very soon you will see the police everywhere. These ones will be dressing in black and black; they are different from our police in their crest and badges,” he said.

Mr Abdu assured that the men would intensify raids at criminals’ hideouts and enhance police visibility, to deter criminals from nursing the ambition of perpetrating crimes.

Global Village Healthcare Initiative For Africa (GHIV Africa), a non- governmental organisation (NGO) has yesterday trained 30 youths from Borno State on humanitarian services to the communities ravaged by insurgency.

The youths, according to the executive director of GHIV Africa, Mulikat Bamidele, were trained on mental health and psychological support; child protection, healthcare delivery in humanitarian crises and washing in humanitarian settings among others.

Bamidele said the need to take these services to the rural dwellers who are the major victims of the insurgency, necessitated the training to enhance the capacity of the service providers.

She said the orientation course was to strengthen the competencies of participants from humanitarian and development actors working in emergencies to establish, support and scale up mental health and psychological support services and programmes in communities.

“The focus of this training is on how to apply existing practical, evidence-based, scalable tools and practice-led approaches for successful implementation of, and as well strengthening mental health and psychological support in emergency operations, protection from mental health and psychological support consequences of the crisis, and towards the realisation of global mental health coverage,” Bamidele said.