The PDP Governorship Candidate for Lagos State, Dr Abdul-Azeez Adediran), says he plans to engage street boys in inter-local government sports competition and other useful schemes to distract them from vices.
Adediran (a.k.a. Jandor) made the promise in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos.
He said that governments must invest in the youth for a secure future.
According to him, if elected, his administration will also engage the youth in other empowerment programmes, including training in running small and medium enterprises.
He said: “What we have done is to first categorise our youths because we will be making a lot of mistakes if we believe that all our youths are lettered for white collar jobs.
“Some are learning one trade or the other, some want to be the Ronaldo or Messi of Nigeria and we have some that are lettered that need enabling environment.
“All these tiers are what our government has something for.
“We are going ensure we have inter-local government soccer competitions across the state. This, we will do every year,” Adediran said.
He said that his administration would establish Lagos4Lagos football club which would absorb talents discovered from inter-local government football competitions.
“When we come to office, we are going to have Lagos4Lagos FC, a state-owned football club, which will not necessarily have to be sponsored by state,” he said.
He said that the Lagos4Lagos football club would be aimed at bringing back the glory of the state in football.
According to him, some discovered football talents will be sponsored to a football academy abroad.
Adediran said that his team had created in the five divisions of Lagos (Ikeja, Badagry, Ikorodu Lagos Island and Epe), technovation hubs to train and engage educated but jobless youths in Lagos State.
“Our government will deliberate invest in the youth.
“For the ones we call ‘omo adugbo’ (area boys), I will create a policy that will mandate all contractors to engage at least 30 per cent of their (ad-hoc) workforce from the area the projects are located.
“They (area boys) can supply waters, cement, sand etc.
“We have a whole lot to see how we can take these people off the streets,” he said.
Promising to provide leadership by example to the youth, the 45-year-old governorship candidate said that good leadership would improve the state in all areas.