The Enugu State Government has empowered 512 young people from the Enugu North political zone through a targeted youth capacity-building and economic empowerment programme designed to equip participants with practical skills, expose them to government enterprise opportunities and provide productive tools to support sustainable livelihoods.
The event which happened on the 24th of September, 2026 at the E24 Auditoium, Onuiyi, Nsukka, was coordinated by the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Strategic Communications. The initiative brought together youths drawn from the 13 Deaneries of the Catholic Diocese of Nsukka, as well as young people from other Christian denominations and Muslim communities across the zone. The inclusive participation reflected the programme’s focus on skills, enterprise and economic opportunity across community and religious boundaries.
A major highlight was the distribution of productive equipment to beneficiaries, including sewing machines, generators, professional make-up kits, hair clippers, insecticide spraying machines for farmers and shoe-making machines for cobblers. The equipment is expected to help young entrepreneurs in fashion, beauty, barbering, agriculture and shoemaking establish, strengthen or expand their businesses.
The intervention aligns with Governor Peter Ndubuisi Mbah’s broader economic-development agenda, which places human-capital development, agricultural productivity, enterprise development, innovation and private-sector-led growth at the centre of the State’s development strategy. By combining training with productive assets, the programme sought to bridge the gap between acquiring a skill and having the tools required to turn that skill into an income-generating enterprise.
Speaking at the programme, the Commissioner for Agriculture and Agro-Industrialization, Dr. Patrick Ubru, outlined the State’s agricultural opportunities and interventions aimed at increasing food production, improving productivity and promoting agribusiness. He highlighted commercial agriculture, agricultural land development, mechanisation, improved inputs, extension services, agro-processing and market development as key components of the State’s strategy.
He also spoke about the administration’s agricultural agenda, including the 300,000-hectare Agricultural Land Bank, 200-hectare modern Farm Estates across the State’s 260 wards, mechanisation and the development of agricultural value chains.
Also speaking, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Digital Economy and MSMEs and Director-General of the Enugu MSME & Startup Agency, Mr. Arinze Chilo-Offiah, introduced participants to opportunities available through the State’s MSME ecosystem, including entrepreneurship development, skills acquisition, access to finance and grants, business formalisation, technology and digital innovation, market access and enterprise support. The Agency currently reports more than 100,000 enterprises mapped, ₦2.5 billion in grants facilitated and 18,244 grant recipients across the State’s 17 LGAs.
The Chief Executive Officer of CUTECH Group, Engr. Collins Onu, also facilitated sessions on skills acquisition, entrepreneurship and youth economic empowerment, emphasising the importance of technical competence, creativity, discipline and business knowledge in building sustainable enterprises.
Speaking on the rationale for the programme, the SSA to the Governor on Strategic Communications, Dr. Collins Ogbu, Esq., whose office organised and coordinated the intervention, said the objective was to connect knowledge with practical economic opportunity.
“The objective is not simply to gather young people in a hall, give them lectures and send them home. We want to connect knowledge with opportunity and opportunity with productive capacity. That is why this programme combines skills acquisition, exposure to government programmes and the distribution of equipment that can immediately support enterprise.”
He added: “By empowering 512 young people with skills, information and productive tools, we are investing in the capacity of the next generation to create value, build businesses, employ others and participate meaningfully in the emerging economy.”
For the beneficiaries, the equipment represented the most immediate and tangible outcome of the intervention. A sewing machine can increase production capacity for a fashion designer; a generator can support business operations; professional make-up kits and clippers can improve service delivery for beauty entrepreneurs and barbers; spraying machines can strengthen crop-protection activities; while shoe-making machines can increase production capacity for cobblers.
Participants expressed appreciation for the training, exposure to government programmes and productive assets received. A fashion-design beneficiary said the combination of training and equipment would enable young entrepreneurs to improve their businesses, while an agricultural participant described the programme as an opportunity to better understand farming as a business with opportunities across the agricultural value chain.
The programme therefore represents a practical skills-to-enterprise model, moving beyond sensitisation to combine capacity building, access to information and productive assets. It further strengthens the interface between the Enugu State Government and young people at the grassroots, while creating pathways for beneficiaries to participate more actively in agriculture, MSMEs, the creative economy and other emerging areas of economic opportunity.
