The Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige, said on Monday that the Federal Government had received 800,000 applications for the 500,000 jobs promised the youth.

Speaking at the 5th Town Hall Meeting organised by the Federal Ministry of Information in Enugu on Monday, Ngige advised the people of the South East to explore the opportunity by registering on the web portal.

He said that the jobs were mainly for teaching and skills acquisition as promised by the APC government.

He said that the administration had a good agenda for the unemployed youths irrespective of the current challenges facing it.

The minister said that 100,000 out of the 500,000 to be employed would be trained as agricultural extension workers and deployed to rural areas to assist the farmers with an improved method of farming through the partnership of the ministry of agriculture.

“I want our graduates to register so that they will not say that they are marginalised when people that registered are selected,” he said.

He urged the governors and local government chairmen in the South East to assist their youths in printing the forms as many have expressed difficulty in accessing the portal.

Ngige regretted that youths neglected skills acquisition to chase white collar jobs that were not in existence, adding that most skilled jobs were being done by Ghanaians and people from other neighbouring countries.

“If our youths had acquired skills, they would be self-employed and reliant and shun Boko Haram, IPOB and Avengers,” the minister said.

He described Igbo youths as enterprising and hardworking and could survive without depending on the government but had neglected their values.

The minister explained that the current economic hardship the country faced was because the past government neglected agriculture and failed to save for the rainy day.

He admonished the Igbo to come out of the “persecution syndrome,’’ saying that the APC-led government was not marginalising any section of the country. (NAN)

•Photo shows Ngige.

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