Solomon Dalung, minister of sports, says he sees Nigerian youths as the country’s assets.
Dalung said this on Tuesday while speaking at a special edition of the town hall meeting series organised by the ministry of information, culture and tourism.
He also said the 2016 budget of his ministry had not been released, adding that the ministry had zero budget due to economic challenges.
“The 2016 budget of the ministry is yet to be released,” he said.
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“Youth development is critical to national development. To my mind, the youths are national assets; the N500 billion social investment fund is deliberately targeted at youths.
“Because of the challenges we had with the budget we ended up with a zero budget. We approached the president to raise our concerns and he made commitment but that would be when we have a supplementary budget. What that means is that we have to think outside the box.
“We are definitely going to take steps to ensure that things that bring disgrace to our national image are prevented.
“As a ministry, we will take careful look at events and ensure proper planning in the future. We will take proper steps to address some of the things that happened.”
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Also speaking, Lai Mohammed, minister of information, culture and tourism, said the All Progressives Congress (APC) did not create the hardship the country is currently under going.
“Government is unrelenting in its efforts to ease the hardship in the land, especially youth unemployment, brought about by years of poor or lack of planning, profligacy, mismanagement of funds, massive corruption and lack of investment in social investment programmes,” he said.
“We did not create today’s hardship, but we are resolved to end it and make life more abundant for our people. There is no question about that. All we ask is your undiluted support. We have no doubt that, working with you, we will achieve our set goals.”
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