Chief Austin Onyedebelu says under his watch as the Managing Director of the Imo State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (ISOPADEC), youth empowerment programmes must be tailored to positively impact and uplift the living standards of the people, and not just for the feel good effect.
A release made in Owerri, Imo State by the Commission’s P.R.O Ekeh Promise Onyekachi, said Chief Onyedebelu stressed the point, Monday in his office when members of the Executive Council of the ISOPADEC Youth Association, Oguta Chapter, paid him a courtesy visit.
He explained that Governor Hope Uzodimma holds Imo youths so dear to his heart that he has rolled out for the youths, in batches, series of life-changing empowerment schemes, and has directed him to replicate some, if not all, in the oil producing region, as his foot soldier.
The Managing Director therefore enjoined the youths to show the needed support by towing the path of peace at all times, and by being law abiding, cautioning that the achievement of meaningful development anywhere, especially in the oil producing region could be complicated by insecurity, youth restiveness and unrest.
In their separate presentations earlier, the youth body, led by their president Comrade Vincent Ohanyere, expressed profound appreciation to Governor Hope Uzodimma for appointing Chief Onyedebelu the Commission’s Managing Director.
While pledging their support and loyalty, they prayed the Managing Director to roll back the drums and re-introduce bursary, scholarship, skill acquisition programs for youths and mothers alike, and to consider an upward review of the monthly subvention given to the youths.
In a vote of thanks, the Special Adviser to the Governor on ISOPADEC matters, Hon. Joseph Oputa, praised the Managing Director for making out time to interact with the youth body, and expressed strong optimism that the Governor, through ISOPADEC, would attend to the concerns the youths have raised.
