One thousand sixteen youths mostly political thugs drawn from 361 political wards in 34 Local Government Areas of Katsina State, have been empowered with N252 million to become productive and self-reliant.

The empowerment programme by the State Enterprise Development Agency (KASEDA) is under the Katsina Building Your Future Youth Development Programme. It is designed to take youth off the streets and discourage them from begging across ministries, departments, and agencies in the state.

The programme, held on Tuesday at the Katsina Local Government Service Commission, had in attendance heads of various regulatory agencies in the State such as the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), the police, Hisbah Board, and traditional and religious leaders among other stakeholders.

Worried about the rampant practice of thuggery in Katsina, the state government introduced measures to reverse the trend.

This programme, tagged: ?Building Your Future Youth Development? is one of the measures designed to take the youth (1,016) in their number off the streets, and to discourage them from begging across various MDAs in the State.

Speaking during the occasion, Governor Dikko Radda said that in this programme, N252 million has been earmarked by the Katsina State Government to take care of the 1,016 beneficiaries in fulfillment of his campaign promises.

The Director General of the Katsina State Enterprise Development Agency (KASEDA), A?isha Malumfashi, hopes that this intervention will bring positive change in the lives of the beneficiaries.

The Katsina State Commissioner of Youth and Sports Development, Zakari Shargalle, and his Internal Security and Home Affairs counterpart, Nasiru Danmusa, called for a collective commitment to ensure that youth are gainfully empowered.

Danmusa said Nigeria has a total of 237 million people with 41 percent of the population being from the ages of 1-5 and 52 percent being between the ages of 15-65.

?This means 93 percent are between 1-65. 40 percent of the population are living below the poverty line. In the North, 77.7 percent of the population is living below the poverty line. This is why the State Government under the leadership of Governor Dikko Radda is initiating various programs aimed at empowering the youth,? he noted.

Governor Dikko Radda eventually presented a dummy cheque to some selected beneficiaries: three men and two women beneficiaries.

To ensure that the beneficiaries use the opportunity judiciously, certain measures have been put in place to monitor them.

The government has directed that any of them caught roaming around government offices, ministries, departments, or agencies begging, will be dealt with decisively. (Channels TV)