‘Youths need capital not N10,000 freebies’
President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina, has expressed concerns over the migration phenomenon known as ‘Japa’ in Nigeria, saying that Nigeria and the African continent are the biggest losers to the ‘Japa’ trend.

Adesina, who spoke yesterday, in an interview on Channels Television, said youths in Nigeria and other 51 countries in Africa do not need freebies under the guise of empowerment schemes but capital to fund their ideas and translate the same into enduring wealth.

The former Nigeria’s Agriculture Minister said Africa’s youth swelling is a demographic asset that has to become an economic asset through rigorous investment in human capital development and financing.

According to him, Africa’s youth population was not a problem for the continent because India and China’s population have not been a problem for them; it is what you do with your population and how you skill them up that matters.

The AfDB boss said that if young people in Africa are skilled and have good jobs and social protection, these would turn to prosperity for the continent because the demography has high purchasing power. He said that in a world of rising tariffs, it is important for Africa to build consumption as part of its gross domestic product.

“In the case of young people and the Japa syndrome, it’s a big loss for us. Young people don’t need freebies; they don’t need people.

“They have skills, they know, they have entrepreneurship capacity, and they want to turn their ideas into great businesses. What young people need is not those empowerment programmes; they need capital, they need you to put your money at risk on their behalf.

“We have over 465 million young people between the ages of 15 and 35. Africa should not turn what should be its demographic asset into somebody else’s problem due to the inability to believe in young people and invest in their ideas for continental prosperity.

“I do not believe that the future of our young people lies in Europe; it doesn’t lie in America, it doesn’t lie in Canada, Japan, or China; it should lie in Africa growing well, growing robustly and able to create quality jobs for our young people,” he said.

The AfDB boss said that the financial system in Africa was not designed to support young people on the continent.
Adesina said to support young people in Africa, the AfDB created the Youth Entrepreneurship Development Bank to support their business plans and to address institutional failure around financing.

He said the AfDB just approved $100 million to set up the Nigerian Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Bank to “mobilise $2 billion of investment for more than 38,000 businesses of young people in Africa.”

“They don’t need N5,000, N10,000. You want to create youth-based wealth. If you don’t, who are the people who will pay the taxes in the future? Where are you going to get the capital mobilisation in the future? You have to therefore, invest in the same demographic so that you can reap in the future,” he added.