A presidential aspirant on the platform of Young Progressive Party, (YPP), Professor Kingsley Moghalu, has said if elected President, he would establish a one trillion venture capitalist fund to address the issue of youth unemployment in Nigeria.
He said the first thing he would do upon assumption of office is to give temporary employment support to young people coming out of the University, on the condition that they would go through skills training.
He added that the venture capital fund would be available for young people to start their businesses based on their skill set.
Moghalu, who spoke on a live TV programme on Wednesday night, noted that the fund would be strictly private sector-driven and not government-run fund.
He said, “The government will invest in the fund, the private sector people will invest in the fund and people will be given funds to start their business based on needs assessment by the fund.
“Everybody doesn’t need a N5 million naira to start a business. There are people who N100,000 can help start a hustle.
“There are people for whom N500,000 is enough. So, the fund will be allocated based on the creative venture that they want to execute,” he added.
Asked how the venture capitalist fund would be different from the Anchor Borrowers and Trader Moni, the former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, simply said if the schemes were so successful, we wouldn’t have the high rate of unemployment and abject poverty in Nigeria today.
“You must judge action or policies of government by their success on the ground and the reality that is facing us is that this country is economically collapsing,” he said.
Moghalu however, stressed that he would come at the Nigerian economy from a place of knowledge, profound experience, economic management and philosophy, with an empirical approach to managing the economy.
Noting that there’s no economy that can be successful without being philosophically-anchored, Moghalu said he would recommend a mixture of entrepreneurial capitalism for Nigeria, mixed with some welfare and social security packages, especially for the aged.
